Posted 3 years ago on Nov. 10, 2011, 3:49 p.m. EST by DemandTheGoodLifeDotCom
(3213)
from New York, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

You can read the most recent version of this idea by clicking here and reading this post. In that post, all claims are linked directly to their sources which makes verifying the claims more convenient.

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The root cause of all problems in society is income inequality which leaves too many people with too little income. So the ONLY solution is to simply allocate income more equally.

We produce $15 trillion in income each year which is enough to make every worker wealthy. If that income was allocated equally, for example, it is enough to pay every full time worker $135,000 per year.

That's right, the average income in the U.S. is $135k. And that is more than what 97% of all workers make. That means 97% of all workers make a below-average income. That is simply not fair and the root cause of all our problems.

In order to fix nearly every social problem we have, we just need to allocate that income fairly. WE NEED TO ALLOCATE IT DEMOCRATICALLY.

If we allocated income democratically, which gave every worker a minimum income close to the $135k average as a right, everyone would have enough income to solve every problem that exists - home ownership, poverty, education, bad neighborhoods, health care. It would give everyone access to the best of what society has to offer as a right.

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A DEMOCRATIC ECONOMY

Democracy is a Greek word. It is not a Greek word for "voting" or "mob rule", it is a Greek word for "people power". It means power rests with everyone equally.

In a democratic society, you should get equal power to participate in the institutions that govern society. You should have equal power in government AND EQUAL POWER IN THE ECONOMY.

Since voting is your source of power in government, you should get a right to equal votes in government. And since income is your source of power in the economy, a democracy means you should also get a right to equal income for equal work in the economy.

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COMPENSATION IN A DEMOCRATIC ECONOMY

Income is compensation for the amount of work you do. So the only legitimate, justifiable reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do more work, to get them to do difficult work and to get them to give their maximum effort.

How much more you need to pay people in order to be an effective incentive can be determined scientifically. And you will not find any scientific study that says people need the ability to earn much more than a 200% to 400% increase in pay in order to be an effective incentive.

We do not need to pay some people hundreds or thousands of times more than others in order to get people to work hard and have a dynamic, growing, productive economy.

And when we limit differences in income to just what is necessary to be an effective incentive, where top earners are able to make 4 times more than the lowest earners, based on the US economy in 2010, THERE IS ENOUGH INCOME TO PAY EVERYONE BETWEEN $115,000 and $460,000 PER YEAR - enough income to make every citizen wealthy. And when you make every citizen wealthy, you put an end to nearly every social problem we have.

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HOW A DEMOCRATIC ECONOMY WORKS

In order to make the economy democratic, we would need to make 2 changes:

Allocate income democratically. The political process would filter out reasonable compensation proposals where differences in income are limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to be an effective incentive and where every job pays enough so that the economy works well for everyone. And then the worker population votes directly on its approval.

Allocate investment democratically. Investment would no longer come from savings. A portion of GDP would simply be allocated to banks for them to invest. And banks would always invest enough to maintain full employment.

But otherwise, the economy would operate exactly as it does now. Consumers will decide what is produced based on how they spend their money. Entrepreneurs with new ideas will go to banks for funding. Companies will be individually run and managed. Companies must generate enough revenue to cover expenses in order to stay in business. Managers will be responsible for hiring, firing and company performance. And companies will still compete for your business.

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HOW TO BRING ABOUT A DEMOCRATIC ECONOMY

The wealthy in this country only have their wealth because they convinced 97% of the workforce to accept a below-average income.

Once the workforce wakes up and sees the raw deal they are getting, and they organize, our current economic order comes to an end.

Because if 97% of all workers demanded that they get an income that is closer to the current $135,000 average or they will go on strike, the system will have no choice but to submit to that demand.

50% would see their income at least quadruple. Getting them to join a national worker union that would make them all wealthy and put an end to their financial struggles will not be difficult. And if they agreed to strike unless the economy was made democratic, the world would change overnight.

Forget elections. The politicians are owned by the wealthy. The general strike is where we have the power to enact massive change in short order.

If you read through these comments, people have no clue about how economics works.

And most people have no clue how unequal society is.

We need to better inform others.

For those who have a genuine interest in or question about this concept, all we are doing is redistributing existing income. Redistributing existing income does not cause inflation. The increase in the minimum worker pay to $115k is fully offset by the decrease in the top earning worker pay to $460k. Read this comment for more information:

If you read through these comments you should also know a lot of these "people" are teenagers that listen to their dads and have too much free time so they choose to troll this site. A lot of the others who oppose are sociopaths that have no respect or human compassion. And The reasonable opposition exists, but they don't spend most of their time on a site that doesn't suit their interests. Which is fine, because I don't troll a tea party website. I actually have a life and I like to be productive. Then the rest are people like you and me who range from ending corruption in government to redistribution of wealth. I don't get why some people have so much trouble being reasonable or at least respectful.

Rage Against the Machine was right. About Everything.

Yes I know my enemies.
They're the teachers who taught me to fight me.
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission,
ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which have become American dreams.

We need to restore the dream.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence was exactly about what is happening in our country right now. Read it again and replace Great Britain with members of our government and private institutions.

Wow, I think it is really interesting that you quotation "people" in reference to teenagers, as if they are not in fact real people that could even be thinking for themselves… so, what about "at least respectful"? Does that not apply to you? If you want to discredit what people are saying, address the issue directly. Don't hide behind angry words and sweeping judgmental brush strokes. You aren't accomplishing anything with a post like this except exclusion and division - us against them.

It seems to me that the majority of people are recognizing this post for what it is, fantasy. They many not all have the knowledge/education to specifically point out exactly what is wrong, but they know it is. And they are right. This post/idea is farcical.

I believe in CHANGING the dream, and I hope all these crazy conversations are working to do just that for the majority of people. Open conversations and real exchange of ideas, testing those ideas for validity, these are the ways to get to meaningful ideas. But if we are going to talk about real changes that can be made, we need to understand what is possible and what is fantasy.

I listed that reasonable people exist even some that disagree with this movement. I have had a lot of conversation with people who are reasonable, even if we differ on ideas. I have never had a conversation or even an argument with someone who is unreasonable. I don't know how to describe it. It's pointless to talk with unreasonable people because they are exactly that... unreasonable. And I am not calling you unreasonable. But the people that threaten my life or call me names are not reasonable.

You don't like compromise? How do you go about your life among other humans, then? You are advocating that it's all about you all the time, all about what you want? You posit a contrasting binary between "liberty" and "compromise" and say you're not a troll?

I should not have to compromise my freedoms.
I SHOULD NOT have to Compromise my rights on the Constitution of the United States of America. Men Died For Our Rights. We Can Not Dishonor Them By Letting Our Corrupt Government Take Them Away.

If I make $300k and you make $30k and I take $100k of my income and pay it to you so that I make $200k and you make $130k, that will have no effect on the price of bread!

All we are doing is reallocating EXISTING income. We are not increasing the amount of income that is getting paid out. So there is no inflation.

If you have a $14.5 trillion economy and you only pay out $14.5 trillion in income, it is mathematically impossible to have inflation. How is the economy going to inflate beyond the $14.5 trillion if only $14.5 trillion is being spent? It can't. It is impossible.

Sure, it's based on the 1st Amendment right to Petition the Government for a redress of grievances, contains a SUGGESTED list, proposes a National General Assembly be held in Philadelphia July 4th 2012, and resolves to form an independent third party if the petition fails.

Just though I'd get back to you about our previous discussion. I must have glossed over some aspects of your idea mentally before. I just want to say, this government determining who gets paid how much, and the quantized pay levels, while it might seem interesting, is I think from an engineering standpoint not a very good system.

It would be extremely hard to administer for one. These types of jumps in pay levels will produce problems at the margins and in the middle. Things should really be continuous. Also, in the end I am not interested in converting the country into a philosophical experiment.

I think we should do it through taxation, and mop up the remaining unfairness that leaves through other means like subsidies etc. Make the minimum change necessary to achieve the goals laid out, and use existing tools to whatever extent possibly, basically. I don't want to step away from revolution or be a wet blanket, but I think we can get what we really truly want through such means.

This system is not difficult to administer. You just need to establish what is a difficult job and how much more they get paid. I gave my list of 12.2 million jobs which is likely what we would agree on. And the top 2.5% in performance based jobs would earn a bonus that brings their pay up to $460k.

That is not a difficult thing for the democratic process to come to a consensus on. Once pay grades are established, business runs exactly as it does now.

So it wouldn't be a philosophical experiment. The economy would run exactly as it does now using the same market mechanisms that are already in place.

This is proper perspective: The central bank, since 2010, has printed the equivalent amount of money that could be divided by every household in the United States a share greater than $46,000 per family. I bet you didn't see this.

I can tell you what it does do, it will cause people to not work as hard. Just because you pay them more does not mean they will deliver more. Kids effectively get paid way more now then they did in the 50s because of improvements in standards of living. Do you see them working harder? I think you cause is nobel in that you want to compress the income gap. But the income gap isn't going to be solved by mandating a salary schedule. It is simply the market assessing a fair albeit low, value on many jobs - like milking cows, cleaning shitters, retail etc.... do you know why? because it doesn't take much skill and the supply of people with no skill is abundant. So really the abundance of no skill is the problem. You aren't going to solve the problem by paying a much higher rate for lower skill. That is called intitlement and it will only make the problem worse. This country produces all that GDP because we are a free country, because eager beavers the world over choose to leave their repressive shit holes to find freedom and opportunity in this country, because americans see the reward in solving key problems for the most number of people and know that they will get paid to do so. What you are talking about is communism and as you can see from any country who has embraced it, the best and the brightest leave seeking better opportunities, and those that stay suffer the repression of their dreams. Not a good outlook for your numerator - GDP. Furhtermore look at Russia, it is still suffering from the effects of communism because the only way to make money was to cozy up to the gov't, that is why they have such a corruption problem today. The more power the gov't has, even if it is elected by the people the more you will have people trying to lobby for benefits. IF you start this crap, rational really hard WORKING Americans will simply show up to the polls to inform you that your idea is not an appropriate solution to the real problem.

I don't care what color or sex you are. If society isn't remunerating you for your skills then you should find other skills or work hard to reposition your existing skills. In some cases, as I have seen where I live people take matters into their own hands and start small businesses. Yeah they take risks, think outside of the box in an attempt to capture more value. Now there is a place for a modest social safety net, but the bulk of resources that the state has should be invested yes invested in initiatives that provide a return to the economy in the form of higher GDP, like principally - EDUCATION and JOB TRAINING. That is the only way you can grow the economy and consequently taxes to provide any level of solvency and services to your folk. The system you propose, how would entrepreneurship flourish in that environment? New product innovation? Is there some empirical evidence you can point me to? Thanks.

We both agree people should be trained in skills to do jobs that produce things people want to buy. That's not what this post is about.

This post is how much those people should get paid. They should get paid an amount so that society works well for everyone. And when you limit differences in income to whatever is necessary for it to be an effective incentive, you accomplish that. There is enough income to pay everyone $115k to $460k.

Our current system does not pay you based on skill. It pays you based on bargaining power. If we had triple the amount of doctors, being a doctor would pay the same as being a teacher.

Pay for everyone should be high enough so that society works well for everyone. Advocating anything other than that is barbaric. Differences in pay should be based on difficulty and effort. And you should only work at profitable companies.

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"how would entrepreneurship flourish"

If you are an entrepreneur, you would rather spend your days working to build your own idea instead of someone else's. That wouldn't change.

Entrepreneurs would then go to independently run banks and apply for capital just like they do now.

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"Is there some empirical evidence you can point me to? "

I propose that we continue with the same system we have now. The only difference is that pay inequality is limited and a portion of GDP is simply allocated to banks as investment funds.

You will not come up with any valid scientific study that says we need to pay people much more than $230k (or twice the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to do difficult work or that we need to pay people much more than $460k (or four times the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to give their maximum effort.

You do not have to pay someone billions in income in order to get them to build a social networking website or a cell phone. In fact, we know you don't even have to pay people anything at all when you see all the free open source software and maker faire inventions.

If Mark Zuckerberg was offered the choice to make $115k sweeping floors or $460k programming the world's most popular social networking website or to do nothing because he doesn't get out of bed for anything less than $5 billion, he would choose to build facebook for $460k. And he would be as dedicated as he is now.

The same goes for Steve Jobs.

To see the empirical math behind how the incomes proposed here of $115k - $460k are calculated (and how the minimum would be lowered to $100k if the maximum was raised to $1 million), read this comment:

but who decides what effort deserves what pay? I fear that the more you put this decision into the hands of gov't you will inevitably end up with a very corrupt system where people, interest groups, unions are constantly lobbying and greasing the politicians to get their job profile ranked higher.

So entrepreneurship. Let's say you make 460k and that is commensurate with the amount of business you are bringing in the door, what will motivate you to double that amount of business. I wouldn't, in fact I think many people would optimize their utility and work just hard enough not to lose the job. Yes there would be exceptions, but I'm afraid what I point out is more the norm. Especially when it is some power saying you don't have the freedom to make more money.

What about inflation, I mean when I have to pay my cleaning people the equivalent of 110k/ year, what do you think is going to happen to my appetite for cleaning services? Either prices across the board would have to go up, or lots of people would lose their jobs. Under this compensation scenario, I would be overpaid too. The likely result is prices would go up across the board and on a purchasing power basis, we wouldn't be any better off.

IMO the movement should be about what we agree on, providing access to the usable educational resources - more colleges, more vocational training, higher expecations of discipline and sacrifice in secondary schools. We aren't going to move forward on a six hour work day, six weeks of vacation policy. We are at a moment in this country's history where we have to accept that it may never be this easy again and that we all have to work our hardest to produce shit customers want to and can afford to buy or services that are important to society - like education, health care etc....

Regulations, I believe many OWSers agree that we need to implement sensible ground rule regulations that prevent any company regardless of industry from becoming a systemic risk to our economy. With in the Fin industry we should expect that boards and shareholders change compensation policies so that executives have a longer term view on the success of their business.

I'm not saying you need to let go of your dreams of socialism/communism, but if the real issue you are trying to address is income inequality, than how about some baby steps. Because remember you have to look at that GDP number you are using as a numerator as the Golden Goose, you can't kill the Goose or there will be no eggs.

"end up with a very corrupt system where people, interest groups, unions are constantly lobbying and greasing the politicians to get their job profile ranked higher."

Being able to petition your government is not corruption. And you will fare far better in a system where pay is determined politically than through your individual bargaining power in the market.

A union job is far better than a non-union job.

Even if your job was ranked the lowest, and you thought that was unfair, it will most likely be higher than what you can get on your own in a free market and you still have the power to leave that job and do something that pays higher wages. So the system is self-correcting.

Plus, the law prevents differences in pay from exceeding what is necessary for those differences to be an effective incentive. So the law is another check on the system.

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"what will motivate you to double that amount of business"

Compensation plans need to be devised so that you reach the maximum pay with your maximum performance.

In my example, 2.5% reach the maximum. So you would have a scoreboard for different categories that you want to compensate people on and the top 2.5% of performers get the bonus.

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"I think many people would optimize their utility and work just hard enough not to lose the job"

And those people what get paid whatever the minimum is for their job.

But the vast majority of jobs are not performance based jobs. The vast majority of jobs are best compensated with a flat salary and intrinsic rewards (like pride of work, autonomy, the ability to master the field they are working in and working on something important). Watch this TedTalk for more info:

Plus there are a ton of ways to effectively motivate people other than monetary rewards. Google the emerging field of gamification which is applying game mechanics (such as completing set tasks for points to level up and acquire medals and outscore the competition and reach the top of the leaderboard) to all real world activities like work, exercising, dieting, learning, etc.

It makes otherwise boring tasks fun. Advocates believe gamification will transform society and will be a part of everything we do. They think game designers will eventually be in charge of developing sophisticated systems that will turn everything we do in our lives into a fun and engaging experience.

Belts in karate or rank and medals in the military are crude examples of gamification.

All we are doing is redistributing existing income. Redistributing existing income does not cause inflation. The increase in the minimum worker worker pay to $115k is fully offset by the decrease in the top earning worker pay to $460k. Read this comment for more information:

We can probably all agree we shouldn't discriminate against people with curly hair. But it would be pointless to base the movement on that.

Instead, we should base the movement on what will help the 99% the most.

Capitalism does not work well for 97% since 97% make a below-average income.

But more importantly, it works very, very poorly for the majority of workers. 50% of wage earners make less than $26k. These people have very little stake in the current system. These people would be more willing to make radical changes.

If you asked 50% of workers would they want to increase their pay from $26k to $115k or to just make better financial regulations, they are not going to just choose to quadruple their pay, they will also be passionate about it.

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"We aren't going to move forward on a six hour work day, six weeks of vacation"

55% of all the jobs we currently do can be automated with existing technology. If we fully deployed this technology, we could work part time and still put out the same production.

The only work people should do is the kind of work you would do even if you weren't getting paid to do it. And you should get paid top dollar. Our system is backwards, anachronistic and needs to go.

A great number of people think getting money out of politics is the solution to bringing about democracy or restoring democracy, and I agreed with that at first. I've reconsidered this to be a false solution.

The true solution to bringing about democracy lies in bringing it to the workplace. In the workplace, democracy dies in a division between laborers and capitalists, who are a small minority with exclusive control over the appropriation of the surplus profits of labor.

How can we say we live in a 'free' country at the same time we get up each day and go to work for a dictatorship? I have been taught to believe a wage slave is a fair compensation for my part in producing wealth, but it is really nothing more than exploitation.

All this will do is cause severe inflation and you will relatively have the same wealth. You all dont know what you are starting, if you all were actually the 99% this country would completely socialist. It's a good thing that you are the 1% that are Anti-American idiots that are too lazy to work hard for money like the rich do and are so lazy that instead of working you hang out with all you friends and protest to get money given to you.....Idiots

All we are doing is redistributing existing income. Redistributing existing income does not cause inflation. The increase in the minimum worker worker pay to $115k is fully offset by the decrease in the top earning worker pay to $460k. Read this comment for more information:

I'm not trying to change the century we are born in moron. I'm trying to improve a failing system.

Despite the fact that we have the resources and technology to produce a near unlimited amount of anything, capitalism has left 97% of all workers earning a below average income, 50% of all wage earners making less than $26k, 1 in every 3 people near or below poverty, 16% underemployed, 52 million without health insurance, and 55% of all workers doing pointless jobs that can be automated with existing technology.

Just in case you missed that, 97% of all workers make a below average income. That is not because everyone in society is a below-average worker. It is because this system is designed to only work for a very, very small percentage of the hard-working, responsible, effective workers.

It's a good dream but a bad idea for every time minimum wage is increased jobs are lost and even more people have difficulty finding work. Same goes when you raise prices on products or services. Good thing that there's still <a href="http://www.gorstselfstorage.com/info.html">affordable storage in Port Orchard</a>.

If all we did was increase the minimum wage to $115k, and kept everyone else's income the same, that would cause inflation. But that is not what we are doing. We are also lowering the top pay from hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to just $465k. The amount we are reducing the top pay is exactly equal to the amount we are increasing the minimum pay. The net result is no increase in price on average.

All we are doing is reallocating EXISTING income. We are not increasing the amount of income that is getting paid out. So there is no inflation.

If you have a $14.5 trillion economy and you only pay out $14.5 trillion in income, it is mathematically impossible to have inflation. How is the economy going to inflate beyond the $14.5 trillion if only $14.5 trillion is being spent? It can't. It is impossible.

The population does not have more money. They have exactly the same amount of money. In 2010 we paid out $14.5 trillion in income. If we allocate income the way I mention in the comment above, we will also pay out $14.5 trillion in income. Total income is exactly the same. We are just allocating that income differently, we are not increasing the amount of income getting paid out.

Yes, the people on the bottom will spend more money. But the additional money they spend will be exactly equal to the amount the people at the top will be spending less since that is where they are getting that extra money from. Overall, total spending will be the same, so there will be no inflation.

I only have a small contribution to make here. For most upper level jobs there is a posted price. For example if a company needs a new VP of marketing, the salary is pretty well determined ahead of time, lets say at $2 Million. There is no bidding for the job based on price. A free enterprise system should allow jobs like this one to be bid on just like other goods and services. Maybe a perfectly acceptable person would come forward for a paltry $1 Million. Or maybe even $500K. But the CEO says, "This is what we must pay to get the best and brightest". Baloney. What is really going on is the CEO justifying an obscene salary for someone under him/her to justify his/her own even more obscene salary. The free enterprise system for job competition stops at manager level. The salary is set based on maintaining the status quo. Although top candidates might ask for even more, they will not ask for less. Why? because the people doing the interview make even more and to challenge the price is to challenge the entire social order all the way to the top. The people at the top justify their own rediculous salaries based on the salaries below them. Similarly, if you can justify a raise for the managers below you, then that justifies a raise for you and that justifies one for your boss and so on. Years of prosperity in American Corporations has created this "salary bubble". The question is how can it be broken? Go to AFL CIO Executive Paywatch.to see the numbers. Remember that the entire pyramid of salaries below the CEO flows from that salary.

The website demandTheGoodLife.com has a detailed and aggressive plan for using a basic income.

However, having a large basic income or capping total income like you suggest is not possible in a capitalist system. Capitalism relies on people privately investing their own savings. When a significant portion of your income is taxed or your income is capped, it is no longer profitable to invest.

People will stop investing. And when investment no longer happens, the economy crashes. It no longer works.

The only way to do what you propose is to have all investments publicly financed. That is what I propose in this post. Instead of using private savings to invest, we would just grant a portion of GDP to banks.

That means companies would no longer be privately owned. But the economy would work exactly as it does now. Entrepreneurs would apply for capital at banks. They would be responsible for making sure their business remains viable (revenue exceeds expenses) and their pay would be based on how well their company performs. But their pay would not exceed whatever the maximum we set democratically.

Now you are buying into the phony numbers perpetrated by the banks themselves. The very first premise about "15 trillion dollars" is itself a subjective claim. Why? Well first, the central bank printed 4 trillion last year, which then was loaned at 0% interest where the financials "profited".

If you want to divide that out; the illusion of complete collapse (which is imminent still, mind you) would occur at a faster rate.

The sheer number of people pointing out that this would cause rampant inflation, coupled with the total inability of the original poster to comprehend the concept of inflation, is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

DemandTheGoodLife, I have to give you props for persistence, at least. So many people pointing out the problems with your idea, yet you just keep fighting. Pretty amazing, and very entertaining.

I don't know what is more hilarious, you, with no economics education, telling me how economics work, you making up different accounts to ask the same question over and over again, or you thinking something is true based on how many people believe it.

Most people here don't understand the difference between median and mean either, which a far simpler concept than inflation.

I have ONE account on this site and I absolutely do not engage in sock puppetry here. Dozens, possibly at this point hundreds of people have pointed out the inflationary effect that your proposal would have. That really should be a hint to you. Any idiot can google the word "inflation" to find out what causes inflation. And increase in the money supply will cause inflation. Your bold idea is all about an increase in the money supply. Your idea takes money that normally would not be circulating and it puts that money into circulation, which effectively increases the money supply, causing inflation. The army of people trying to point this out to you could draw diagrams, and you obviously would still never understand. Which is absolutely hilarious.

"hundreds of people have pointed out the inflationary effect that your proposal would have. That really should be a hint to you."

It is a hint that many people do not understand inflation and basic math. Plenty of people here also think median is the same as mean. You and many others do not understand basic math and basic economics.

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"increase in the money supply will cause inflation. Your bold idea is all about an increase in the money supply. Your idea takes money that normally would not be circulating and it puts that money into circulation"

Your obsession with constantly making dumb, uninformed comments on my posts about topics you know nothing about is bizarre.

In 2010, there was $14.5 trillion in circulation that was spent. If we pay every worker $115k to $460k and all of that money gets spent, there will be $14.5 trillion in circulation that gets spent.

So this plan does not increase the money supply. It does not increase the amount of money in circulation. And it does not increase the amount of money that gets spent.

If I proposed that we pay everyone from $230k to $920k, that would require $29 trillion in income. That is double the amount of income we produce. So that would double the amount of money in circulation. That would double the amount of money being spent. And since we are unlikely to be able to double our output in a year, it would cause inflation.

But I am not proposing incomes that require us to double our total income. I am proposing incomes based on our current total income.

I know you have difficulty with basic math, but it is all explained in this comment:

You have consistently displayed your inability to understand basic math.

And not surprisingly, you now display your lack of reading comprehension skills.

No wonder you say the same comments over and over and over again despite the fact that I am teaching you with simple math and verifiable data sources why you are wrong. You aren't capable of understanding the comments I write.

If you raise minimum wage, it helps the poor for about a week, then costs go up, then the middle class gets hurt because they don't get a wage increase when minimum wage rises, but still have to pay the hiring cost in goods.

All we are doing is redistributing existing income. Redistributing existing income does not cause inflation. The increase in the minimum worker worker pay to $115k is fully offset by the decrease in the top earning worker pay to $460k. Read this comment for more information:

Yet again, somebody pointed out to you that your grand proposal would cause inflation. Yet again, you responded by repeating your mantra: "Redistributing existing income does not cause inflation." It really is just comedy at this point, after months of this same thing every day.

Your "redistribution" would put a lot of money into hands that will spend it, when it was previously held by wealthy people who didn't spend it. In fact, the whole point of your idea is to do just that: increase the amount of money in circulation. The result of increasing the money supply is inflation. Innumerable people have tried to explain this to you in many different ways.

Your obsession with constantly making dumb, uninformed comments on my posts about topics you know nothing about is bizarre.

In 2010, there was $14.5 trillion in circulation that was spent. If we pay every worker $115k to $460k and all of that money gets spent, there will be $14.5 trillion in circulation that gets spent.

So this plan does not increase the money supply. It does not increase the amount of money in circulation. And it does not increase the amount of money that gets spent.

If I proposed that we pay everyone from $230k to $920k, that would require $29 trillion in income. That is double the amount of income we produce. So that would double the amount of money in circulation. That would double the amount of money being spent. And since we are unlikely to be able to double our output in a year, it would cause inflation.

But I am not proposing incomes that require us to double our total income. I am proposing incomes based on our current total income.

I know you have difficulty with basic math, but it is all explained in this comment:

The general strike. For this no "unions" are needed. For the 135k per person per year, new society would have to emerge. A power shift beyond a "class" (or caste) system from the 1% minority to the 99% majority. A true and very real populas/goverment ownership of all profits from all businesses. The real owners would have to limit their growth by 10%.

The NBA will probably have a problem with this. Plus, in some areas of the country $460K would not be enough to cover a large family with two kids in college, nice home, etc. Will never happen, but fun to imagine.

Did you just say we can't have a society that works well for everyone because the NBA won't go for it? lol

$460k is more than enough to live in a large home. If you pay 1/3rd of your income on your mortgage, you could afford a $4.6 million home. If both adults earned the top pay, you could afford a $9.2 million home.

It is also enough to pay for college. But college is work, not a consumption item. You should be paid to work. So I advocate that students should be paid to go to school, not the other way around.

This program will increase the income of 97% of workers. It will more than triple the income of 50% of workers. If they agreed to strike for this system, it would happen.

$460k is more than enough to live in a large home because currently not many people make that much money. If lots of people made that much money then everything would cost more, and $460k wouldn't buy a very nice home at all.

Let's pay everybody $4.6 million. That's enough to live in a nice home, right? Not if everybody makes $4.6 million! If everybody makes $4.6 million then a really nice home would cost tens or hundreds of millions.

Your obsession with constantly making dumb, uninformed comments on my posts about topics you know nothing about is bizarre.

2.5% of workers will earn $460k which is about double the amount of people who make that much today. That doesn't mean demand for large homes will double since many of the people who make more than $460k today buy multiple large homes which wouldn't be possible if the top pay is now $460k.

But we can significantly increase home construction output. We won't have a shortage of material, the material is fully recyclable, and the construction industry makes up just 3.3% of the workforce. So the industry has a lot of room to grow.

Plus, as the home building association pointed out, we still use crude, labor-intensive home building methods. The industry has not yet adopted modern automated production methods. We can now factory build any style home and as the industry shifts to automated factory production of homes, output per construction worker will significantly grow.

We can develop the capacity to put everyone in 5000 square foot homes on 1 acre plots if that is what everyone wanted.

Your obsession with constantly making dumb, uninformed comments on my posts about topics you know nothing about is bizarre.

The economy is a political system. Economics is short for the term political economy.

Democracy is a Greek word. It is not a Greek word for "voting" or "mob rule", it is a Greek word for "people power". It means power rests with everyone equally.

In a democratic society, you should get equal power to participate in the institutions that govern society. You should have equal power in government AND EQUAL POWER IN THE ECONOMY.

Since voting is your source of power in government, you should get a right to equal votes in government. And since income is your source of power in the economy, a democracy means you should also get a right to equal income for equal work in the economy.

Just like with a democratic government, the means of law making are equally owned by the public and everyone gets an equal amount of its votes, with a democratic economy, the means of production are equally owned by the public and everyone gets an equal amount of its income for the work you do.

All we are doing is redistributing existing income. The increase in the minimum worker worker pay to $115k is fully offset by the decrease in the top earning worker pay to $460k. Read this comment for more information:

You want a society where everybody gets paid similar salaries, not one where everyone is rich. If everybody gets paid six figures then that means that nobody is rich. People keep trying to point this out to you in lots of different ways.

Your obsession with constantly making dumb, uninformed comments on my posts about topics you know nothing about is bizarre.

A person who earns $115k is wealthy. Since this will be the minimum income, that means everyone will be wealthy.

I do not think someone who makes $30k is wealthy. So if I proposed a system where the maximum income is $10 million and the minimum income is $30k, then everyone would not be wealthy. But that is not what I am proposing.

If we only produced $7.25 trillion in goods and services instead of $14.5 trillion, then we would only be able to pay out half the incomes I propose. I would be proposing that we pay everyone from $57k to $230k and not everyone would be wealthy. But we produce $14.5 trillion, not $7.25 trillion.

"But they live in America and do what they do because of loopholes. FIx the loop holes and they can't do it but don't tell them to leave while you promote communism."

I do want to fix the loophole. We put an end to people privately owning government. Now it is time to close the loophole that allows people to privately own the economy. I want democracy, not aristocracy.

They can stay here. I'm just saying if they want to continue living in an aristocracy, they can move to China. But if they want to live in a democracy, they can stay right here.

I don't promote communism. You might want to brush up on your political economy. Communism is a system with no money, no property and no government. That is not what I advocate.

"No just lose the money they worked for. Even if they haven't worked for it, it is still theres."

I don't advocate taking anyone's money. But if they continue to work, their pay might be different.

However, they can keep anything they earned up to that point. And if they want to continue earning thousands of times more than others in an economy that still has a significant portion of the population in poverty, they are free to move to China.

If someone calls this communism, maybe you can take the time to educate them on what communism is.

Communism is a hypothetical stage society will reach once it develops the technology to eliminate scarcity. Once you eliminate scarcity, you don't need money or property or government.

Technology enables you to reach such an abundance that you no longer need goods and services to be rationed with money, people can take all they want. And automation is so advanced, all the jobs nobody wants to do are done by machines, so you don't need to pay people to work.

No society has ever achieved communism. We do not have the technology to achieve it. I advocate the use of money, prices, markets for goods and services and working for an income. So I do not advocate communism.

You advocate a classless society, which I think might be part of what rovertech meant by that. You advocate a society where the government mandates how much everybody should be paid, to prevent anybody from getting paid significantly more than anybody else, in order to eliminate class distinctions. That's not true, pure "communism" any more than the Soviet Union was, but it is definitely not free-market capitalism.

I do not propose free market capitalism. I do not propose communism. And I do not propose an undemocratic, Soviet, command economy.

I propose a system where the means of production are democratically owned and controlled and are no longer privately owned for the private benefit of a small group of people just like the means of law making are democratically owned and controlled and are no longer privately owned for the private benefit of a small group of people.

I propose that goods and services should be allocated by the market. We should produce what consumers buy. Production shouldn't be determined by some Soviet central command.

I propose that investment should continue to be decentrally allocated. Independently run banks should allocate investment funds to whatever independently run businesses they think will be profitable.

And I propose that differences in income should be limited to whatever is necessary for income to be an effective incentive.

put the breaks on where in the world did you come up with that "fact" that average income in the US is 100+ k per year???? Here lies the problem with the "people" running/involved in this movement...how can ANYONE have credibility when you use a statement like that...ridiculous and makes the smart ones here and on the streets look like idiots. Glad you used that point early in your post so I know not to bother reading the rest....

Demand whatch this....Social Security Adm:2010 national Average Yearly wage:41,673. US census bure.: Yealry wage 2009,49,777 (below poverty is only 14.3 % of population btw). FedupUSA(probably some other site complaining about something in america) 2009:46,326. mybudget360 (another site) says same as fedupusa. Sorry but I will not open a link posted by anyone.Espcecially not one that looks like it was from nowhere in particluar except this site.

If you actually commit to clicking on the link, you might learn something.

You might learn the difference between median and mean.

And you will probably find credible sources like the bea.gov, which is the government agency responsible for reporting all national account numbers like total income and total hours worked, which we can derive worker productivity from or what non-economists call average income.

Or you can continue making ignorant comments and defending a system that is robbing you blind.

I have been to more than 2 dozen "agencys' And known come up with the numbers you do...I live in Brooklyn ny,park slope and 135 a year average I can tell you now 135 a year damn I do not know what america this data was compiled in

OHHHHH NOW I GET IT based on your theory get your information from one source and one source only,do not investigate futher and think for self,now if thats the case you should go to govt sites that say there is nothing wrong with the govt and choose to believe that as well and all is fine,by the way is average and percenatges PERFECT OR 100% accurate or an estimate depending on data entered...ok I got you now...and what i said is I live in Brooklyn ny,park slope actually and know the avergae income here is not 135 a year well thats if ai bas eit on 10 average people shit I can manipulate those numbers anyway I choose add a person lose and income....what USA do you live in where this data was compiled.

put the breaks on where in the world did you come up with that "fact" that average income in the US is 100+ k per year???? Here lies the problem with the "people" running/involved in this movement...how can ANYONE have credibility when you use a statement like that...ridiculous and makes the smart ones here and on the streets look like idiots. Glad you used that point early in your post so I know not to bother reading the rest....

You have proven yourself to be a master of economics. I am sure you know every economic theory and philosophy ever tried observed and written along with all the great economists of past centuries. I admire your knowledge of the subject.

Karl Marx had tried to improve the human condition. Napoleon fought for human equality.
The magma Carta back in the teeth century was a step towards freedom. The American revolution was backed by the spirit of freedom.

In all this history and war , people knew what was wrong but a clear view of what was right was always missing. As in the protest today.

While there are many expert economists monitoring this site their tactic seems to sneak up silently with an undercutting remark but you have the courage to stand and present yourself with an idea of your own.

Equality vs Opportunity. America's founding immigrants were running away from their oppressive liberal-socialist "Lands of Equality" fraud to come to the "Land of Opportunity". And their hard work and dedication to that dream created the most powerful, and helpful, nation in the world, helping ensure all the freedoms to achieve, and conviences to enjoy, that you benefit from today. Now, because you failed to achieve, or the world just didn't meet your expectations of given-success, you effectively say those immigrants were fools. And now you feel justified in wanting to change that, simply based upon a relatively few cheaters seemingly making lots more money than you got. A very dangerous predident. Also to you, money seems to be everything, the defining factor, and that is really sad. In an "opportunity" enviornment one is rewarded for hard work, intelligence, education, and good behavior. In an "equality" environment all that is punished, and the elites get to say who gets what, fueled by ignorant masses, leading to huge enthusiasm for destructive politics to govern, and a growing world of dependants (pure dictatorship). You, and the liberal media that covers up truth, are the reason for a weakened America. Also, be careful about trying to make Capitalism a dirty world. Capitalism is made up of entities producing either goods or services. Manufacturers of goods take on huge risks, get very marginal profit margin, hugely regulated and taxed, have top management having to take zero paychecks lately, and provide the vast majority of jobs. In comparison, the service sector, namely financial institutions in this argument, employ relatively few, operate at minor risk, have the vast wealth in the world, able to escape regulation, and get huge bailouts and top management bonuses - all liberal government-sponsored. Bill Clinton created this whole mess by forcing 6 major financial institutions (banks and insurance companies) to forget all the rules and give away homes to get black vote, and promised bailouts if things went sour, and delivered. Those institutions ended up hugely funding the Democratic party 12:1 over the Republican Party, and by that got insured their bailouts and bonuses. And Clinton also put the regulators to sleep so he could run free with all his shinanigans. We don't need more regulation law on Wall Street, making more lawyers rich. We just need regulators to get back to doing their job, and put Bill Clinton and his supporters in jail. All this is fully documented in at least 3 books, and numerous facts discovered by very meritorious think tanks on public policy that became equally disgusted with it as I. And how did it all get to be? Emotion driven by a large population of pure ignorance, today embodied by OWS, and a liberal Democratic Party and media who smartly play you all like the fools you are. We must teach the children, using OWS as the example, so this never happens again.

GDP, the total price of all the goods and services we produce each year, determines how much income is available to pay out to workers. If we produce $15 trillion in goods and services, we obviously need to pay out $15 trillion in income to buy all those goods and services. The democratic process would then decide how that income is allocated.

The purpose of income is to motivate people to work. So the only legitimate, justifiable reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do more work, to get them to do difficult work and to get them to give their maximum effort.

The political process would filter out reasonable compensation proposals where differences in income are limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to be an effective incentive and then the worker population votes directly on its approval.

So we can't predict what the exact final plan will be.

But what we can predict is that you will not come up with any valid scientific study that says we need to pay people much more than $230k (or twice the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to do difficult work or that we need to pay people much more than $460k (or four times the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to give their maximum effort.

You do not have to pay someone billions in income in order to get them to build a social networking website or a cell phone. In fact, we know you don't even have to pay people anything at all when you see all the free open source software and maker faire inventions.

If Mark Zuckerberg was offered the choice to make $115k sweeping floors or $460k programming the world's most popular social networking website or to do nothing because he doesn't get out of bed for anything less than $5 billion, he would choose to build facebook for $460k. And he would be as dedicated as he is now.

The same goes for Steve Jobs.

We also know that studies show the general public wants equality, not inequality. Every dollar you pay to some other person is one less dollar that can be paid to you. So they will never vote to lower their own income in order to give celebrities or Kim Kardashian or athletes or bankers or anyone else the ability to earn, say, 10 times what they make, let alone 500 times or 10,000 times.

The voting public will make sure differences in income remain where they are supposed be: just enough to get people to do difficult work and to give their maximum effort.

When we limit differences in income to just what is necessary to be an effective incentive, there is enough income to make every citizen wealthy. And when you make every citizen wealthy, you put an end to nearly every social problem we have.

But does not seem fair if a person works hard all their life, does well and has to share it with a no load who does very little all his life or just lives off the system. We all know folks like that. I sure do. Those folks belong in a crappy trailer house in the crap part of town.

If you work a difficult job you would earn $230k, significantly more than what you likely would earn now. That is pretty fair. And we would still be able to pay everyone else $110k. We don't need to put people who work into trailers.

If someone does not perform at their job, they should be fired. If they choose not to work, they will get no income.

Sorry, if a security guard sits in front of a radio eating donuts all night till his shift is over, he sould not make a ton of cash. If he did, then why would others strive to get better jobs? A security guard should get $8.00 per hour.

People would strive to get other jobs because they pay more and because there is only a limited amount of security guard positions available and because they don't want to waste their life sitting in front of a radio eating donuts.

Why not pay everyone $65,000? It's plenty, and we would have enough left over to prevent our immanent destruction from various environmental catastrophies. Of course the super rich would also only be allowed to make $65,000. It's a thought anyway.

We do not need to pay people less in order to switch to clean energy. We would just use the money we spend on dirty energy to buy clean energy. And if we had democratic control over the economy like I propose, we would make switching to clean energy the number 1 priority.

I actually don't believe income redistribution is what we're about here, although there must surely be more prosperity for the lower and middle classes. Attempts at complete income equality have never been very successful, and I'm not sure they're even warrented. But I essentially like where you're coming from:)

I'm not aware of any places that paid everyone equally. What place are you referring to?

I do not advocate paying everyone equally. You would get paid from $115k to $460k since a chance at increasing your pay by 400% is all the incentive you need to get people to do difficult work and get their maximum effort. The calculations can be seen here:

I'm sorry, I thought you were advocating a uniform pay scale. These ideas seem worthy of considerstion. I think our goals now have to do with gaining sufficient plitical leverage to implement the changes we would like to see:) Thanks for your Post!

The wealthy in this country only have their wealth because they convinced 97% of the workforce to accept a below-average income.

Once the workforce wakes up and sees the raw deal they are getting, and they organize, our current economic order comes to an end.

Because if 97% of all workers demanded that they get an income that is closer to the current $135,000 average or they will go on strike, the system will have no choice but to submit to that demand.

50% would see their income at least quadruple. Getting them to join a national worker union that would make them all wealthy and put an end to their financial struggles will not be difficult. And if they agreed to strike unless the economy was made democratic, the world would change overnight.

Forget elections. The politicians are owned by the wealthy. The general strike is where we have the power to enact massive change in short order.

I'm not prepared to give up on the democratic process. As far as elections are concerned, what we need are new cantidates to begin with. I think it is a false dicotamy to think we must work either just within, or without the electoral process. I feel we must do both. Strikes are good. Demonstrations are good - direct, effective, non-viloent, action is good, but unless we can fundamentally alter the system by next November we better also have a strategy in place of running our cantidates and voting for the best choices. To do otherwise is, I think, to unnecessarily limit our power. Just thoughts.

So you have taken it upon yourself to determine what is "fair". What happens if I disagree with your definition? A coin toss?

Your "theory" above would have to use the old economics 101 adage...... "all things remaining constant". That term is used only in a classroom setting in order to "simplify" the teaching of economics to new students. "All things remaining constant" does not actually occur in the "real world".

Who determines what is "fair", and the lack of "all things remaining constant" would quickly collapse your theory if it were actually applied.

Income is compensation for work. The only fair way to compensate work is to pay people based on the amount of work they do. The only legitimate, justifiable reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do more work, to get them to do difficult work and to get them to give their maximum effort.

How much more you need to pay people in order to be an effective incentive can be determined scientifically. And you will not find any scientific study that says people need much more than the ability to earn a 200% to 400% increase in pay in order to be an effective incentive.

When we limit differences in income to just what is necessary to be an effective incentive, there is enough income to make every worker wealthy. And when you make every citizen wealthy, you put an end to nearly every social problem we have.

The political process would filter out reasonable compensation proposals where differences in income are limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to be an effective incentive and where every job pays enough to make that worker wealthy. And then the worker population votes directly on its approval.

If you think it is more fair to have a system that has left 50 million in poverty, 16% underemployed, 1 in every 5 kids in poverty, 25% of all blacks in poverty, 97% of all workers earning a below average income, 52 million without health insurance, and 55% of all workers doing pointless jobs that can be automated with existing technology, you could lobby for that instead.

You don't address "Risk". Remember...it's not "work & return", it's "risk & return". It's the "risk" of an investment that warrants the larger return. Without a disproportionate return for the risk incurred, then no one would risk money in a new business. Thus no jobs for workers.

It is mathematically impossible to make everyone wealthy. If you raise wages to the level of "current" wealth, then that level becomes the "average".

Poverty in the US is not due to income distribution inequality. It is due to "education" inequality which causes a "natural state" of income inequality. Politicians get to determine what is taught to the citizens of this country. They have been corrupted by special interest groups. How much economics is taught in 1-12. Not hardly any. How can anyone expect our citizens to understand the economics of prosperity, if no one teaches them? This alone is our country's greatest failure.

No, it is not the risk that warrants return. If it is risky and low return you'd be an idiot to make that investment because the risk when factored in reduces the average rate. That is part of the knowledge that goes in to the return calculation, that is all.

Education, indeed. Education is not the problem, either. In case you haven't noticed, you can get a phd and still get paid a lot less than the amounts mentioned here, or be out of a job.

With your scenario, there wouldn't be any reason to get an education. Why bother.....everyone will get paid equally. As a matter of fact.....why work? Since you don't believe in allowing anyone to be a financial failure, I could just sit on the beach all day and collect my check when it arrives.

Investment would no longer come from savings. A portion of GDP would simply be allocated to banks for them to invest. And banks would always invest enough to maintain full employment.

When I say wealthy, I obviously mean wealthy relative to those who are wealthy today. Someone who makes $30k is not wealthy. But someone who makes $115k is. Since everyone will earn at least $115k, everyone will be at least wealthy.

Inequality is not caused by education. If you had an education and were competing in a market where everyone else had an education, you would have no more leverage to command a higher salary than if you had no education and were competing in a market where everyone else had no education.

Inequality is caused by our capitalist system which makes it easier for those with a lot of wealth to acquire more and more wealth. It is a system that concentrates wealth and income in the hands of the few regardless of how educated the population is.

You my son are one major Loon! You can't make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor - Franklin.

If every person is guaranteed a minimum income then why would anyone aspire to become a Dr. Or a Scientist/Engineer? What you fools fail to understand is that the most successful economic system is capitalism, and in such a system failure is as critical as success. Without the prospect of failure and the expectation of bailouts, capitalism becomes impossible. Wake the fuck up you loon!

I don't advocate making poor people rich by making rich people poor. I advocate a system where everyone is rich.

People would become doctors or engineers because they enjoy that work and because they would earn 2-4 times more than everyone else.

Capitalism has left 50 million in poverty, 16% underemployed, 1 in every 5 kids in poverty, 25% of all blacks in poverty, 97% of all workers earning a below average income, 52 million without health insurance, and 55% of all workers doing pointless jobs that can be automated with existing technology.

I would not call that a success.

A system that works well for everyone as a right, where you had none of those problems, as proposed here, would be far superior.

Those income numbers are based on paying the top 2.5% of workers who give the highest performance or do the most difficult work $460k, paying the 12.3 million workers who do physically or mentally difficult work $230k (science, computers, engineering, medicine, construction, mining, or farming), and everyone else $115k.

If, for example, we voted on a plan to pay the top performers $1 million per year, then the bottom earners would drop to $100k.

You should really change your name, "demand the good life" really turns a lot of people off.

I have been going through this post and trying to educate people, and I thank you for trying to do the same. I also have one more suggestion to drop of before I have to go, I hope you see this although you are clearly quite busy: having read about halfway down the only comment with any significant contribution from others (rather than a teaching moment) is probably the one that points out the problem with starting companies under this system. The problem is that it corrects unfairness within companies. That produces issues. Taxation, which corrects withing countries, is a better way, as it avoids this. Positive taxation of the 3% and negative taxation on the 97% might be a better approach. I encourage you to consider updating your idea accordingly. Also, it is true that reading some books on economics is a good idea here, although remember that the economic field is heavily biased though conflicts of interest (there is good reading material on this by economists on the web).

The money within the pool of a single company is the main pool from which money is redistributed when you use minimum wage as your fairness-producing tool. This can be a real problem for a small company when it is first started and is not producing enough money to pay everyone that much money yet. You could have an exemption for these types of companies but ultimately things get more complicated faster and the administrative and enforcement overhead would likely be harder etc.

Taxation operates by doing this by, in a way treating the whole country as a big company. This has many perks compared with trying to do it on a company basis, as mentioned and some more. From what I recall of economics, it is true that minimum wage can cause unemployment problems, as well as make entrepreneurship harder. Using taxation will still distort things, theoretically according to classic economics (which is heavily biased due to conflict of interest and also known to be out of touch with reality in many ways) is usually for the worse but I am skeptical about that and how much, especially when taxing people at the high end. (It is certainly true and acknowledged by classical economics that taxing people at the high end is far less distorting, on a per dollar basis, than taxing people with lower income, too.) Also what matters is not GDP but how well off we, the people are, so I am not fussed about minor dents in the economy, and again GDP could conceivably go up with a system like this IMO.

So yeah, a positive tax rate on the 3% and a negative tax - for every dollar you earn you get some money back from the government too - for everyone else.

Also caps and hard-limits tend to produce problems in the area of the limits, distorting incentives. Making things more continuous, as is done normally with taxation, makes more sense. Simply have an equation (or in the case of normal taxation it is a spline curve but same idea); enter the income you receive from your employer, and it tells you how much you get to keep after taxes. In this new system, the 97%ers would actually keep more than they were paid, the gov would give them money to bring them up to a level near what you propose as fair.

This also is easier to apply to the existing system; simply change the tax code and existing enforcement mechanisms.

There are obviously problems with this too; one is that you could have circles of people "employing" each other to do nothing getting money out of the government. That would have to be solved by policing and could probably be solved easily I guess, as is already done with farm subsidies and so forth, anywhere the gov is handing out money. Also it lacks some of the fairness aspects you have regarding paying people more for more difficult work, that could be corrected by subsidizing those jobs or industries, for which mechanisms are already in place.

Anyway, that's my suggestion; use taxation innovatively as the mainstay for the fairness-implementation.

Using taxes to redistribute income is talked about at length in this website: DemandTheGoodLife.com

They propose a flat 50% tax which would raise enough money to pay current government expense plus pay a $40k dividend to all workers. So workers would earn whatever salary they currently get from their employer plus a $40k bonus from the government.

The problem with interfering with income allocation (especially on the scale outlined in this post) is that it is a disincentive for people to invest. When income is limited, it makes investment riskier and less lucrative. So less people will do it.

The only way around that is to make all investment funds public. That is what is proposed here. We simply allocate a portion of GDP as investment to banks for them to invest. Investment funds would no longer come from private individuals.

And since the investment funds are public, the ownership of the companies they invest in would also be public. But otherwise, new company start ups would go through the same process as they do now. You would apply to a bank for start up investment money, you would be responsible for the success of the company and your pay would be tied to the success of the company.

But your pay would not be just whatever profits the company earns. Your pay would be the same for everyone working in the economy and would be set democratically at the national level. So, for the example in this post, the highest performing companies will earn their founders/managers the maximum pay of $460k.

This is way too simple math. If you want to do simple math, then use the GDP per capita (aka person), which is $44,872. That includes every man, woman, child, and retiree. Corporations would no longer have any revenue of their own, so all corporate taxes and benefits would have to be taken out of your income. It might balance out with Social Security and Welfare benefits going away, but its a much more complex calculation than I'm willing to do justice.

Why are you using Gross Domestic Income when its already broken down for you in that same table by type? Employee compensation is only half that number, which would put the average salary for a full-time employee at $75,000.

Elaborate on how this will work, and I'll listen, but right now you seem to be proposing a way to completely collapse our economy. You're giving all income that's used for reinvestment from businesses to employees, and then you're saying that there's no incentive for an individual to invest in stocks, companies, or rental properties.

Not to even mention that you're now paying employees the corporate taxes that were paid to the government, so that $135k is really a lie unless you're reducing non-workers benefits, as well as money that is invested in assets like inventory.

Investment would no longer come from savings. A portion of GDP would simply be allocated to banks for them to invest. And banks would always invest enough to maintain full employment.

Entrepreneurs and existing businesses will apply for loans to those banks just like they do now. Although they would be responsible for its success and would be able to get paid up to $460k based on its success, they do not own the business and would not be personally liable for the loan.

First, that's at best a misrepresentation to say the incomes you cite are pre-tax because you've now switched a corporate tax into a personal income tax when you could have excluded it from the $135k to begin with.

Second, if a portion of GDP is 'allocated' to banks to invest and interest isn't paid, then all they can do is lose money, which is another hit on the $135k.

Third, businesses are now giving their profits in income to employees, which go to the banks, which they then have to apply for in order to get a loan to reinvest... that's a lot of unneeded bureaucracy to do a worse job than businesses that succeed have funds comparable to their success to reinvest like today.

Fourth, what happens when businesses start failing, since they'll have no profits in reserve? Very few start-ups make a profit in the first year, so since the owner won't be liable and will not have invested their own money, how do the workers get paid?

There's too many issues with this to go on. Simply put, I would scrap this idea completely. It all boils down to just wanting the minimum wage raised, and I think most people would agree that it should be enough to where a full-time worker can live without the need of government assistance.

Nobody is getting paid $135k. That is the average income. Incomes would be from $115k to $460k.

1- I don't know what you are trying to say. Taxes would be a flat 15.8% if you wanted the same level of government.

2- You would obviously have to pay banks a fee to cover their expenses. But you wouldn't pay interest because you are not borrowing anyone's money.

3- Businesses would have a line of credit to cover short term financing.

They can apply for a loan for long term financing. This is not any more bureaucracy than the bureaucracy that an existing company goes through when deciding how to invest their own funds. You need to develop a plan and that plan needs to be viable. Whether a bank reviews that plan or upper management reviews that plan makes no difference.

But a company can also use its own surplus funds to expand. They just cannot pocket those funds for personal use.

4- Start ups, just like start ups today, would get investment financing that will get them through the start up phase.

1a. Your $115k to $460k is based on the same calculations as the $135k. That number isn't correct, so your other numbers are also not correct.
1b. This is the first I've read of your 15.8% tax as well. Show your calculation.
2. So now if my company would earn a profit, I'd have to pay a bank to be able to reinvest it? Your only incentive for my company to do anymore than break even is to break into your higher salary bracket myself, so who are these all-powerful deciders of salaries?
3. There's a huge difference. Reinvestment occurs daily on a small scale. If someone overseeing a departmental budget has a surplus, they can reinvest that surplus without having anywhere near the level of plan necessary to acquire financing. Your income dollars are saying that no reinvesting of profit can occur without a bank's oversight.
4. So, my start-up loan has increased in size, and I'm not liable for the loss. Where do I sign-up, and the rest of the world? How is a bank going to determine who to give one to or not? Without personal liability, the only justification will be validating the business concept, so now banks have to be experts in every industry to not suffer substantial losses.

The political process would filter out reasonable compensation proposals where differences in income are limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to be an effective incentive and where every job pays enough so that the economy works well for everyone. And then the worker population votes directly on its approval.

So we can't predict what the exact final plan will be.

But what we can predict is that you will not come up with any valid scientific study that says we need to pay people much more than $230k (or twice the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to do difficult work or that we need to pay people much more than $460k (or four times the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to give their maximum effort.

You do not have to pay someone billions in income in order to get them to build a social networking website or a cell phone. In fact, we know you don't even have to pay people anything at all when you see all the free open source software and maker faire inventions.

If Mark Zuckerberg was offered the choice to make $115k sweeping floors or $460k programming the world's most popular social networking website or to do nothing because he doesn't get out of bed for anything less than $5 billion, he would choose to build facebook for $460k. And he would be as dedicated as he is now.

The same goes for Steve Jobs.

We also know that studies show the general public wants equality, not inequality. So they will never vote to lower their own income in order to give celebrities or Kim Kardashian or athletes or bankers or anyone else the ability to earn, say, 10 times what they make, let alone 500 times or 10,000 times.

The voting public will make sure differences in income remain where they are supposed be: just enough to get people to do difficult work and to give their maximum effort.

When we limit differences in income to just what is necessary to be an effective incentive, there is enough income to make every citizen wealthy. And when you make every citizen wealthy, you put an end to nearly every social problem we have.

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"Reinvestment occurs daily on a small scale. If someone overseeing a departmental budget has a surplus, they can reinvest that surplus without having anywhere near the level of plan necessary to acquire financing."

And that would continue in the plan outlined here.

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"Your income dollars are saying that no reinvesting of profit can occur without a bank's oversight."

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that your personal income is limited to whatever the compensation plan is.

If your company had a $1 billion surplus, you could use it to, say, build a new factory. All I'm saying in this plan is that the people that work at that company and the people who will be building that new factory are going to be earning an income outlined in whatever the compensation plan is.

However, we may have limits on overall investment throughout the entire economy. For every $1 we invest, that is $1 less we have for consumption.

We also would likely still have industrial policies that guide investment. For example, if we wanted to begin the transition to clean energy, we might tax coal surplus and use that tax revenue to fund solar panel investment.

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"So, my start-up loan has increased in size, and I'm not liable for the loss. Where do I sign-up, and the rest of the world?"

You can go to any venture capital firm and get the same deal. They do not loan money, they make equity investments. And the company founders would not be personally on the hook for that equity investment.

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"How is a bank going to determine who to give one to or not?"

They will analyze the plan for viability just like what investment bankers do today.

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"so now banks have to be experts in every industry to not suffer substantial losses."

Yes, that is the way investment banking works. They are experts in every industry they invest in.

The point is the salary numbers would look different compared to how people view income today. Someone earning $135k does not pay corporate taxes out of that amount. Then when you say a 15.7% tax rate that is based on no tax credits or deductions.

As far as investment, you used income numbers that included the profit of companies even when that profit isn't being paid to individuals. So, the only way to pay these salaries would be for all companies across the board to not reinvest and liquidate all inventory. If that's not your intent, then the $135k drops substantially.

Instead of trying to reinvent our entire economy, why not just promote a higher minimum wage and put a limit on the maximum income per year? If you want to discourage earnings based on investments, then charge higher taxes on them.

"the only way to pay these salaries would be for all companies across the board to not reinvest and liquidate all inventory"

That's not true. These numbers are correct if all income was spent and none of it was saved.

If you had a $1 billion surplus and you did not spend it and let it sit in a sock drawer, there would be $1 billion less available to pay out as income.

But that money, like all money, will sit in a bank account within the banking system. And all idle money will be used for lending. So either you spend it or someone will borrow it and spend it. But it all gets spent.

The question is how much gets spent on investment and how much gets spent on consumption. An increase in investment means a decrease in consumption.

Not everyone is going to spend their entire income, so that would offset the amount you use for investment. If we were short on investment funds, we would impose some kind of sales tax.

If we had no savings and everyone spent their entire income and no company generated any surplus income (which would never happen), we would need a 15% tax in order to maintain current investment levels.

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"why not just promote a higher minimum wage and put a limit on the maximum income per year?"

That's exactly what I'm doing. The minimum wage is $115k and the maximum is $460k. But since nobody would invest their own personal funds in that kind of economy, you need to fund investment publicly. Otherwise, everything works exactly as it does now.

By the way, this is not my idea. Democratic socialism has been advocated for 200+ years from Thomas Paine to Albert Einstein to Martin Luther King Jr.

this idea is not new, but is gaining exposure. The flip-side of the argument is that the United States has an employment problem: THERE SIMPLY ARE NOT ENOUGH JOBS.

Combine the idea of a DEMOCRATIC ECONOMY where salaries are higher, with an UNCONDITIONAL BASE INCOME, and voila, the economy would be racing along on higher discretionary incomes, and all the social problems would be alleviated.

Just imagine the bureaucratic waste that could be eliminated when child care and other social programs are no longer needed.

the reason there are fewer jobs is because "we the people" over the last 2 centuries have created an amazing amount of technological advances which enable the provision of food, shelter and clothing, essentially for free (little or no cost).

We the people own this technology, not the corporations. It's like a natural resource: water and air.

Unemployment is high because of the financial crisis, not because of technology. Automation just enables us to work other jobs. It doesn't put an end to working or eliminate the need to work. There will always be work for people to do.

Homes cost several hundred thousand dollars. Food costs several thousand per year, the same goes for clothing. I'm not sure how you can say they are cheap or free.

Please site your sources, I can't find any numbers online that even resemble an average wage of 135k. Also, Fedup10 is right, we need a fair tax system. He just happens to be wrong that a flat tax is fair. Bread is of more value to a man than gold, so we should tax a man's gold more than we tax a man's bread. For that reason a progressive tax is reasonable, just, and good.

That chart compares average incomes for different countries. Norway is number 1 by a large margin.

The BLS worker productivity is slightly lower than the average income number because they do not include the income you get from things like rent since you cannot increase the productivity of your rent.

Keep working on this idea. It's too much like communism in all honesty. Give it a process. A process that is based on each company which still creates good competition, as well as a system based on age. A 15 year old shouldn't make as much as a 40 year old. Give incentives based on working hard. Create a process that allows competition and advancement.

I've said for a while that company wages should be based on profits. I also like companies that give their employees a say in how they operate and give their employees part ownership as well. They are the view but they are the most productive companies that exist because they provide prosperity and a career that is motivational.

Communism has no money, no markets and no government. I don't advocate anything like communism.

Here is a snippet from my post:

But otherwise, the economy would operate exactly as it does now. Consumers will decide what is produced based on how they spend their money. Entrepreneurs with new ideas will go to banks for funding. Companies will be individually run and managed. Companies must generate enough revenue to cover expenses in order to stay in business. Managers will be responsible for hiring, firing and company performance. And companies will still compete for your business.

Yeah I guess communism is an extreme word to use. Sorry but school brainwashed us to hate communism. I forget that some times. Good post man. My main point was a suggestion that you keep working on this concept. I think it has a great idea behind it but it needs more. A lot more. Possibly even 20 to 30 pages of ideas with facts to back them, like you have done here in your post.

I have a better idea.How bout we give every full time worker the sum total of 50,000 at the end of the year bonus. There would be 2 conditions for receiving this 50,000 dollar bonus.1. is that you would have to be a full time employee proving that you work 40 hours a week 2.You would have to spend your bonus every year in order to receive another one..

It's not fair to give 115000 dollars to some dweeb that flips burgers. Burger flippers make minimum wage because the valuethat they produce is tiny. It would be unethical to give them any more than the value that they produce

"Burger flippers make minimum wage because the valuethat they produce is tiny"

Consumers do not make any kind of statement about how income should be allocated or what workers should get paid when they make purchases. When they buy a baseball ticket, they do it because they think that a game is worth the ticket price. They are not doing it because they think they should make less income at their job so that A-Rod can make $25 million per year at his.

If consumers had a choice between paying Price A where they earn $33k at their job and A-Rod earns $25 million at his or Price B where they earn at least $115k at their job and A-Rod earns $460k at his, then the market would be valuing workers.

And once consumers do have this power to value workers, our current system comes to an end because nobody is going to voluntarily choose to earn $82k less at their job so that A-Rod can make $25 million at his.

Capitalism is not a system that pays people fairly or based on how consumers value producers.

Capitalism is a system that concentrates income. The more income you have, the easier it is to acquire even greater income. And acquiring enough income to participate in that system of income concentration is based mostly on luck, genetics and heritage.

A-Rod was born with the ability to play baseball better than everyone else. Donald Trump became rich because his father gave him $50 million. And since markets are unpredictable, the difference between winners and losers is merely luck.

After about a century of this, despite deliberate intervention from government, income is so concentrated and so unequal that 97% of all workers now make a below average income.

That is not because everyone in society is a below-average worker.

It is because this system is designed to only work for a very, very small percentage of the hard-working, responsible, effective workers.

That is not a fair system.

Income is compensation for work. The only fair way to compensate work is to pay people based on the amount of work they do. The only legitimate, justifiable reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do more work, to get them to do difficult work and to get them to give their maximum effort.

When we limit differences in income to just what is necessary to be an effective incentive, there is enough income to make every citizen wealthy. And when you make every citizen wealthy, you put an end to nearly every social problem we have.

define "reasonable" the 50 million you speak of qualify for plenty of welfare - pleeeaaase - you have to factor that in. and when you do - they are the richest poor people in the world. Anyway - good luck to you lol! keep drinking the kool aid

It is not like something close to this has not been tried before. Even China, while keeping a communistic government, is moving their economy toward a free market with spectacular results. Cuba is going to allow private ownership of land I am told.

Is your point that we are now technologically sophisticated enough to avoid the problems this type of economy has had in the past, or that your proposal is new and untried?

I advocate democracy, not dictatorship. I advocate allocating goods and services through the market, not through a command economy. I advocate transparency and the freedom to act, think, speak and criticize.

I advocate the exact opposite of China or Cuba.

I just want to build on what we know already works: democracy, fairness, the market, decentralization, organized labor, accountability, transparency, incentives, etc.

Yeah I really did give this some additional thought, in spike of my conviction that this thread is a masterful troll.

If a restaurant has to pay the busboys 115k, the food will be outrageously expensive. You would probably retort that it is not efficient enough and other restaurants would steal away the business, but they TOO would be paying $115k for their busboys. A burger would indeed cost $500 (which everyone can afford now anyway yay!), and $115k would be the new poverty line.

My business would be moved to countries with no such wage restrictions and I would accept my revenue in a currency which had not be diluted so completely. Then I would buy dollars from the world bargain bin and retain an outrageous salary in spite of this folly.

If people think your explanation falls short, search my username on this thread, also read up some about "real value" and it's relationship to money and inflation, go ahead and borrow my explanation, that should fend 'em off.

Well, I mean in all fairness, and I mean this to no detriment, we must be quick to admit to ourselves that this is ultimately just draft stuff and general thinking. It's not born out by testing as a complete system, only piecemeal through science, and a ton of scholarship, but that is not an insult, we gotta start somewhere and it's a heck of a lot better than nothing and we have to make do with what we have. I appreciate your effort a great deal as this all starts with public education and thinking though the propaganda fog and so forth. But we need to recognize our limits, it will make us stronger. The best scholars in the world could not come up with something that is 100% correct if they had free reign and tons of time to work together.

Well, I mean in all fairness, and I mean this to no detriment, we must be quick to admit to ourselves that this is ultimately just draft stuff and general thinking. It's not born out by testing as a complete system, only piecemeal through science, and a ton of scholarship, but that is not an insult, we gotta start somewhere and it's a heck of a lot better than nothing and we have to make do with what we have. I appreciate your effort a great deal as this all starts with public education and thinking though the propaganda fog and so forth. But we need to recognize our limits, it will make us stronger. The best scholars in the world could not come up with something that is 100% correct if they had free reign and tons of time to work together.

But each franchise is privately owned, and the owner makes about 10% of revenue (so, 40K and up annually). The overseeing corporation would not be required to pay your McD staff, the owner of the franchise would. They would have to worry about their secretaries and administrative staff, but that has nothing to do with small, individual restaurants. And if you want, just change my example of McD, to an independent deli or restaurant.

We are all having an easy time finding things that will cost more, but you have not been very specific about examples of things that would cost less. Care to elaborate? I know you were already asked elsewhere but you did not reply.

Why would anyone put in the time and effort needed for anything, if extra effort only gives you the satisfaction of a job well done? Let's face it the guy that can fix my car properly deserves more and knows more then the man guy waving the go slow sign along a highway construction site. One task requires effort and training and basic intelligence, the other any warm body can do. We're not equal, never will be. Your idea gives me a raise but would be an incentive for everyone to work less. I think the idea has been tried before, something about from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

Metaphorically
You live in a house with 80 foot walls but no roof, and everytime it rains there is water on the floor. So you propose: use lumber from the walls to raise the foundation!
What you really need is a roof.
The idea of a maximum wage begins to provide society with equality
Your heart is in the right place

Metaphorically what I am advocating is a system that allocates income so that there is enough incentive for people to do difficult work and give their maximum effort and there is enough so that the lowest earner makes $115k in order to have a society that works very well for everyone.

Exactly. The trick is to tweak things so that people who work hard get paid fairly (and of course get a handle on the crimes of the 1% to prevent the destruction that causes, but that's another story) and the productivity of the economy either does not go down too much, or goes up.

And it's not at all hard to see how the economy could actually be improved, too. Poverty, insecurity, and other social issues have enormous costs which would be alleviated here. The crimes of the 1% would be harder for them to commit as we could all fight back more easily, removing that destructive force.

Also, ultimately remember: if we have control of the government, we have control of the economy. That's really all there is to it. So we need to government back first before we can implement this stuff. Once we have the gov back, a lot of stuff will change, a lot.

The government defines what ownership is. Taxation is essentially a tweak of the concept of ownership. The government can tweak it any way they want. They can confiscate a private company and nationalize it if they want to. They have the monopoly on violence, which means they have the last say, ultimately. They control the atoms. The economy is only software. The government is the hardware on which the economy runs.

Ownership is only a social convention really. Through the government we control it theoretically. You have to realize that ultimately the government is also a social phenomena; this is just a group of hairless apes here. I don't mean the government as it stands, but government period. The theoretical concept. Right now it is corrupted by money, but we can fix that and we must.

If you could get people to go on general strike, you'd still have to decide what to do during the strike. That is government. You have to decide when to hold it, as a group. That is government.

I understand the concern.. And thus far fail to respond with appropriate response.
It seems to come down to incentive.. perhaps certain difficult unfillable jobs will have incentive " perks other than financial gain. Question: is this one concern enough to abandon the whole project?
Something like this may have to be decided by democracy.. Once the whole plan is pit forth ,we can than weigh in.

Critics of paying everyone equally would point out that paying people who do more difficult work or work harder more than others is not comparable to slavery.

However, the argument used to support slavery (they get treated better when they are the property of someone than workers who are just wage slaves and the standard of living of slaves continually goes up) are the same kind of arguments for continued inequality and all the poverty, misery and struggle it creates.

"we still have to be realistic. The economy is a little easier to damage than you seem to think"

I can't imagine damaging it any more than it already is.

Capitalism doesn't work and never has worked.

All our wealth and progress has come from science, not capitalism. Capitalism just allocates that wealth unequally.

Despite the fact that we have the resources and technology to produce a near unlimited amount of anything, capitalism has left 50 million in poverty, 16% underemployed, 1 in every 5 kids in poverty, 25% of all blacks in poverty, 97% of all workers earning a below average income, 52 million without health insurance, and 55% of all workers doing pointless jobs that can be automated with existing technology.

And to the critics who say that it might be messy, but it still gives everyone increasing standards of living, I would point out that was the exact same argument used for slavery.

Poverty and financial struggle is wrong just like slavery is wrong, despite the fact that your standard of living may be rising.

Critics would say that doing the physically difficult work of slinging iron to build a bridge in painful weather is not equal to bagging groceries in a climate controlled building, so they should not receive equal pay.

Someone may prefer to be an iron worker over a grocery clerk .. for the physical exertion and satisfaction of accomplishing something.. the challenge ..the adventure .. having a look at bluprints and skill and pride .. while being a store clerk just doesn't appeal to everyone .. even though it is light duty and indoors .. standing in one spot for hours ..doing mindless numbing work .. where s the joy and satisfaction .. even at equal pay..

there are other examples :

sure someone at the bottom and broke has money as an incentive .. they have basic needs .. food shelter etc.. but look at a billionaire .. surely they no longer need money and yet they still work .. why? they could easily retire .. money can not be their incentive .. when they have way more than they need ?

or look at the military , the money is not so great and yet people sign up to put their life on the line .. you cant tell me an incentive for getting shot at is money?

Police officers .. what is their incentive ..

School teachers .. I think you would offend them if you claimed their incentive was money ..

Doctors ? they are above doing something for money as an incentive .

Lawyers .. maybe they like a great debate .. an arguement .. a challenge.. or perhaps its the money?

Look at Farmers .. they are practically broke and they don't give up .. if money was the incentive .. there is surely no money in farming ..

when a student chooses a trade between culinary arts , or..machine shop .. money is not the deciding incentive..
In fact most students will choose a career of interest over money .. look at all the students that have graduated and can not find work in their profession .. but had they chosen a career for money .. maybe they would have been working .. money is a horrible incentive.. and with Equal pay it removes money from being any incentive what so ever.
I think most people are happy with having their bills paid .. and not really worrying about getting more more more .. they are more concerned if will there be not enough for tomorrow?
I think most people are content with having their basic needs met financially.. and money is not important .. they would rather have a life of happiness and culture around them ..

View this quick TED Talk on compensation incentives which demonstrates that people are motivated by intrinsic rewards at work such as autonomy, mastery over their job and purpose in what they are doing:

Plus there are a ton of ways to effectively motivate people other than monetary rewards. Google the emerging field of gamification which is applying game mechanics (such as completing set tasks for points to level up and acquire medals and outscore the competition and reach the top of the leaderboard) to all real world activities like work, exercising, dieting, learning, etc.

It makes otherwise boring tasks fun. Advocates believe gamification will transform society and will be a part of everything we do. They think game designers will eventually be in charge of developing sophisticated systems that will turn everything we do in our lives into a fun and engaging experience.

Belts in karate or rank and medals in the military are crude examples of gamification.

What do critics say about an auto dealership selling one automobile and making $5000 profit sitting in an nice climate controlled office, or a realtor making 5% of a $200000 dollar sale? Perhaps critics have been corrupted?
Have you been corrupted?
Slinging iron/bagging groceries .. What's your passion?
I admit the idea has trivial matters to attend with.

You are not going to "allocate" anything that I have earned to someone else. Myself and many other (more than this particular minority) are prepared to prevent that. By whatever means necessary. For the good of our country.

Ah, but then we have to ask how much you did, in fact, earn. If you are in the 1%, then you probably are not earning as much as you are getting paid, by no means.

Some fatcat CEO that gets paid 50 million a year is not working a thousand times as hard as the rest of us who are putting in long days. They are not earning anywhere near that much more than many of the others in the company.

Now if you really do earn your money, you need not fear. Read the freaking post.

your use of profanity makes your argument childish and ineffective. But please try again. Has life really dealt you such a bad hand that your ability to learn and be social are compromised? I feel for you my friend. I just hope that your childishness is displayed because you are a child and not a disillusioned geriatric.

I advocate a democracy not a dictatorship, a market economy not a command economy, and transparency not fantasies that the dear leader is a god who got a hole in 1 in his first golf game.

I advocate the opposite of North Korea.

The billionaires and media personalities - who make hundreds of millions in income (an amount you will never earn), and who tell you that the only way the economy can work is if you and 97% of all workers make a below average income and struggle or live in poverty so that they can have most of the income - are lying to you. And if you believe them, you are being incredibly gullible.

The billionaires and media personalities - who tell you that if we allocate income in any way other than the way it is now, that society will turn into a totalitarian Stalin dictatorship with labor camps, murdering political dissenters and secret police - are lying to you. And if you believe them, you are being incredibly gullible.

The billionaires and media personalities - who tell you that the only freedom a person should have is the freedom to have a 1% chance to live the good life - are barbaric and uncivilized.

Stop being so gullible. Get better educated. And start advocating for a system that works best for you, not for a small, wealthy minority.

This idea is completely insane. Redistributing existing income creates a sloth based society. Work for or create a small privately owned business. Some success stories were drafted on a napkin & financed with pennies. It's called innovation, or entrepreneurship. It's not easy, which makes it self rewarding.

Sigh. You are basing your opinions on silly stories, not reason or evidence or history or anything else that actually matters.

There is nothing in this suggested system that prevents innovation and entrepreneurship. To the contrary, the amount of capital flowing around to jump start your business would be far easier to access - you don't have to deal with vulture venture capitalists and let them leech your company into the ground with their ultra high interest loans, you can simply talk to your friends and neighbors. Plus people can afford to take the risk that job jumping entails, etc.

Lowering the barriers to entry will produce vast amounts of entrepreneurship and innovation.

There are actually studies that show that people appreciate crappy jobs less if they get paid more. I'm too lazy to find the study, but the gist of it is that when tasked with something tedious like putting a bunch of file folders in alphabetical order, people who get paid less like the job more than people who get paid more. Weird, I know. Anyway, I don't support raising the minimum wage to that amount, but I do think we should change the minimum wage to a minimum salary. What a lot of places do is hire a bunch of part timers so they are expendable. On top of that, the more people they have the less money per week/year they each get. Raising the minimum wage that high would just cause a ton of inflation.

I skimmed through the thread and saw this has been explained to you a number of times very simply: raising the minimum wage will cause inflation. This is not the same as redistributing existing income. It is raising the minimum wage, which is not the same as redistributing existing income. ///not the same/// K?

"Forum Post: SOLUTION: Raise the minimum wage to $110,000 per year" Other people have explained to you how this will contribute to an increase in cost to produce goods, therefore an increase in the cost of goods.

This must be a troll. You can't maintain or decrease the cost to get say a tomato to the grocery store by massively increasing the wages of everybody that put it there. There's nobody in that supply chain to lower their salary to 460k. It's all increase.

i can't believe you're actually serious about this idea. go take an econ 101 class. if you simply upped minimum wage right now to 20/hr you'd create a ton of unemployment. if you magically made everyone's salary 100k you'd have so much inflation that a big mac would cost $100.

I am smarter and better at business than most people, and so I get paid much much more. Other people are incompetent and would never be worth 110k. We are born different. We are not equal. Life is not fair.

But fine, if you want to make everything perfectly equal, I propose that anyone who is more attractive than I am should be made more ugly, since that is also unfair, and gives them advantages in life that I was not born with.

Hm strange because girls do not treat ME equally when there are better looking guys around. Life is not fair, people have different advantages.

The market will always determine worth. If you are hot, you get lots of attention, favorable treatment and advantages finding a mate. Nobody limits how many people you can flirt/mate/marry. Why are you trying to limit how much money I can make, if I am playing fair, paying my taxes, and employing happy loyal people (at well below 115k)?

What my employees would prefer is quite irrelevant. My employees are free to start their own companies, and pay themselves whatever they are able to (as I have done). In the mean time I will continue to pay them above market--but well below 115k, and the rest goes to my family and children.

You are eloquent and sensible, and your 'plan' is fairly obviously idiotic. I have come to the conclusion that you are the best troll ever.

What is idiotic is an economic system with $15 trillion in production that has left 46 million in poverty, 16% underemployed, 1 in every 5 kids in poverty, 25% of all blacks in poverty, 97% of all workers earning a below average income, 52 million without health insurance, and 55% of all workers doing pointless jobs that can be automated with existing technology.

A system where a person's standard of living depends on your benevolence or their luck in the market is idiotic.

I guess that depends on if my work ethic is better than the other guy. I'd like to think if I work harder and smarter that I might get a little more than the guy who shows up late and doesn't care what he is contributing! And if your going to say that he would be laid of by the company I work for, he would just get a job somewhere else making the same, still doesn't seem fair.

I thought you said that every level of job pays the same? If there were two of us in the office one making $200,000 and one making $30,000, you proposed combining that and splitting it up and paying us equally? Therefor if I am doing the same job as someone else and I work harder, that doesn't change the actual job I am doing so we would still make the same $.

Okay, now you're getting carried away.
There is nothing wrong with different pay levels associated with the value of differing skills. Excessive pay in the millions per year is ridiculous- no one person is worth 32+ million per year, but not everyones skill is worth 110K/year.

In an economy that produces $14.5 trillion in income per year, where the most difficult jobs and highest performers get paid 4 times more than everyone else, the lowest paying job is worth EXACTLY $115,000 per year.

There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to paying someone less than that amount.

I have to disagree here. What we need to do is bring everything done, not bring things up. Bring certain aspects down to reality. For instance - politic officials salaries. Those salaries are insane. Cutting them even in half will save a lot of money and allow them to realize what it is like for the rest of us. Make them pay their own travel cost and living expenses too. They forget that they work for us.
Second, any company that received a bailout should be charged with theft if they gave out bonuses. A bonus is what comes from surplus profits. Not from money borrowed from tax payers. Those corporations owe the government, the tax payers. And if they can't pay - well heck, we should foreclose on their businesses!

I was merely listing one example to a solution to equalize the income. If politicians lead the way, others will follow. It would make more sense to regulate the salaries of politicians - public officials - then it would for private business owners.

I'm saying that it's more realistic to start by reducing politician's salary. It would be very hard to increase the minimum wage. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea. I just merely think that we need to start somewhere and that is a good spot.

I'm not sure what value there is in pursuing something that will not help anyone at all.

People care far more about increasing their income by 400% than lowering some politician's pay. And 50% of the entire work force would see that kind of increase. 50% of the work force have all the power. If they wanted a system that paid them fairly (and they do), they can get that tomorrow with a general strike.

I understand what you are saying 100%. I was just merely saying that the government would never go for that - increasing the minimum wage. But we could vote on lowering the political wages.
Then we could go about raising the minimum wage.

Where the crap do you get your figures? The "average" of anything is what lies in the "middle between the two extremes. If the "median" income in the US is $45k, then HALF of the entire work force earns less than that, and HALF of the entire work force earns MORE than that.

Well, in Russia, me and my mother get roughly 4500$ a year. And this is a common situation for all small towns here. But somehow we survive.
I believe that the situation should be solved not only by increasing income, but also by reducing demand. Thus, at the intersection of these two trends we can achieve even greater efficiency, without reducing the quality of life.
Economy should be ecological and prohuman at least.

You'll be surprised how people can cope with even fewer resources than I do.
This is an incredibly common around the world.
As it was shown by recent economic recession, increased demand solves nothing. Resources is by all means limited, well at least for those who can afford themselves to spend $135,000 annually. (4,164,750 rubles, in my currency, great sum, huh? ).
Point is, then you consume even lesser having these 135k, you can live like a king by undeveloped world standards, and work less.

Gees, I think this is socialism. You get not what you earn, but what you take from the earners. Why would anyone want to work hard and then be forced to give it those who don't work at all? So Justin Beiber should only keep 135k and give the rest away? Michael Moore too? Why would they do that?

We can certainly tolerate poverty for 50 million. But there is no way we can tolerate Justin Beiber only making $460k.

And as you correctly point out, nobody would want to work hard or make pop music for $460k. There is no way I would want to play music all day for anything less than $5 million per year.

Since a class based economic system works so well, we should bring it back for government too. Why should some loser who makes a fraction of what Justin Beiber makes get the same amount of votes as Justin?

If you want to vote, you should prove that you are worth the vote. Beiber shouldn't have to give all his votes to some office worker who makes a mere $30k.

Great Idea.. I think the average person should earn what their job creator earns...That would lead to more job creation...Just think everyone would own their own business and work the number of hours that the person who writes their paycheck works... and put in the number of hours and personal risk involved...Great post and good reading for anyone that has never owned a business

They had a command economy, not a market economy. In a command economy, some bureaucrat in GOSPLAN determines what will be produced. If they determine they are not going to produce Nike style sneakers, and people want Nike style sneakers, you will have a black market in Nike style sneakers. Saying you can't have Nike sneakers is no different than saying you can't have prostitution. Both will result in black markets.

I do not advocate a command economy. I advocate a market economy in goods and services. Consumers determine what is produced based on what they buy. So there will be no black market in consumer goods. You can get whatever you want in the white market.

Oh, and now you will have bureaucrats determine what is a hard job and what isn't. So by your own admission, there are some 130 milion jobs, and you will have a panel decide which is hard and which isn't. Sure.

This is a great idea! Super fantastic!! Why didn't Einstein think of this?! A person could drop out of school at age 16, work as a Starbucks barista and pocket $135000, while my neighbor kid could finish high school, go to college, go to med school, go get a residency in pediatric neurosurgery, studying and working ridculous long hours for 16 years and the drop out would have pocketed $2 million over that time and still make 25% oh what the doctor did, and only worked 40 hour weeks. Of course the dr is now 32 and could never catch up to the 2 million the drop out earned while the Dr was studying. And the Dr has to take emergency call, go for extra yearly education, and the barista just has to avoid spilling coffee.

A person working at Starbucks would earn $115k. A doctor would earn $230k - $460k for working the same amount of hours. And since school is work and not a consumption item, you would get paid to go to school.

This may shock you, since you have little ambition, but some people would rather spend their days saving lives than making them coffee.

But making coffee is a complete waste of human time. Those jobs will be automated with existing technology.

There will be no baristas in a democratic economy. People only do those jobs out of desperation.

Wasting a human life, the most sophisticated piece of machinery in the universe, on filling a cup with coffee is a criminal waste of the most valuable resource we have.

Baristas along with 55% of all the jobs we do will be immediately automated with existing technology.

This will create a constant stream of newly unemployed workers. So another thing we will hold the overall economy accountable for is full employment. We will invest whatever amount is necessary to maintain full employment.

People will have an opportunity to contribute in more useful, important and meaningful ways.

This will keep the economy growing, more efficient and more dynamic than the current economy.

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"Do you write for 30 Rock?"

Read a book instead of watch tv and you won't be so misinformed in the future.

No. A physician who spent 16 years in school doing mentally difficult work would earn about the same as someone who spent 16 years doing physically difficult work. People who do mentally or physically difficult work would earn 2-4 times more than those who do not do difficult work.

To learn how the incomes proposed here of $115k - $460k are calculated, read this comment:

Welfare wouldn't exist like it does today in your barbaric society. Every worker would be wealthy and everyone is guaranteed a job. Baristas would do something more useful that we wouldn't be able to automate.

Then you admit you don't know. You need to figure that out. Otherwise you are just posturing.

You are earnest, but of limited wit and vision. Here is what will happen if your idea came to fruition. Black market. Whenever prices are fixed, and there are historical examples going back centuries, black markets arise. If I am a surgeon and I work 40 hours a week to get my $425k, and someone additional needs a surgery, I won't do it unless I get paid extra. how would you pay an artsy like u2? If my top income is $435k, and I created a record that sold 20 million copies, who would get the extra money? I wouldn't, I already topped out. why would I go to the hassle of to put on a tour? I made my $435k the first day my smash record came out.

Real life example: I and some venture capitalists have sunk millions into a start up drug company to find an alternative to MERSA resistant bacteria. Most of the VCs make far more than $435k, they would no reason to invest their money in a life saving drug, because there would no reward. You haven't allowed for capital formation at all. Capital comes from excess wealth. You eliminated excess wealth.

We will never run out of jobs to do. We will have roughly 150 million jobs. They will choose one of them. Do you really want me to name the tens of millions of different jobs people do in this forum?

I don't know many Americans who are going to go to a shady, black market doctor.

U2, just like everyone else, gets paid to work. Since writing music is not difficult, it would get paid $115k for working full time. Of course, they need to sell enough U2 stuff to cover their salaries, otherwise they would not be professional musicians. In order to reach the $460k level, they probably would need to tour.

Excess revenue remains in the banking system and is used to cover the incomes of workers at companies with revenue shortages and/or to expand the U2 operation by hiring more workers.

Investment would no longer come from personal savings. A portion of GDP would simply be allocated to banks for them to invest. And banks would always invest enough to maintain full employment.

Do you even read your own posts. In an above post, you eliminated 55% of jobs. You need to replace those.

Americans go to Mexico now for medical care. And look at Greece, a place very much like what you propose. The Greek black market is over 25% of the published market. The Italian black market is $420 billion. Those are countries with strong redistributionist traditions. You need to answer the black market question. If you avoid it, you admit failure. The USSR was virtually over run by black markets.

Banks don't invest in start ups, they are forbidden by charter. And btw there is no excess to invest, you paid out all 15 trillion in salary. And why would they invest in start ups, when they couldn't reap any benefit?

Writing music isn't hard? How many "Joshua Tree" albums have you written?

You can double the workers in the 45% we cannot automate. So you could cut the work week by 55% and maintain the same output. Or keep the work week the same and double the output in those jobs.

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"Americans go to Mexico now for medical care"

Because they cannot afford medical care here in our barbaric economic system. In a democratic system, everyone has enough income to get medical care.

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"look at Greece, a place very much like what you propose"

Greece is a capitalist system with a government that spends more than it takes in.

I propose a democratic economic system, not a capitalist one. And every market organization needs to have enough revenue to cover its expenses. You can't spend more than you have.

So Greece is nothing like what I propose.

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"The Greek black market is over 25% of the published market"

A number that nobody believes. But so long as you make certain activities illegal that people want to do, you will have a black market. If you ban prostitution and drugs, you will have a black market in prostitution in drugs.

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"You need to answer the black market question."

I did. If society democratically determines that they will make drugs or prostitution illegal, you will have a black market in prostitution and drugs. That is true whether you have a capitalist or socialist system.

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"The USSR was virtually over run by black markets"

They had a command economy, not a market economy. In a command economy, some bureaucrat in GOSPLAN determines what will be produced. If they determine they are not going to produce Nike style sneakers, and people want Nike style sneakers, you will have a black market in Nike style sneakers. Saying you can't have Nike sneakers is no different than saying you can't have prostitution. Both will result in black markets.

I do not advocate a command economy. I advocate a market economy in goods and services. Consumers determine what is produced based on what they buy. So there will be no black market in consumer goods. You can get whatever you want in the white market.

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"there is no excess to invest, you paid out all 15 trillion in salary"

There is a natural savings rate. Not everyone spends all their money as soon as they get it. If we pay out $1 trillion per month in income and consumers spend $850 billion per month, there is $150 billion available for investment. If the natural savings rate is not enough, consumption income will be lowered.

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"why would they invest in start ups, when they couldn't reap any benefit? "

Whatever money is available for investment will be allocated to banks for them to invest. The investment bankers who work at those banks will be paid to invest that money in start ups.

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"Writing music isn't hard?"

Then you can join the music lobby that tries to get the work musicians do paid the same as construction workers, miners and doctors.

I don't think you will get many people to agree with you that it is mentally or physically difficult work. But I could be wrong.

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"How many "Joshua Tree" albums have you written?"

I don't think writing music is hard work. Whether your music goes on to be as popular as the Joshua Tree is pure luck.

You can double the workers in the 45% we cannot automate. So you could cut the work week by 55% and maintain the same output. Or keep the work week the same and double the output in those jobs.

You are crazy.

"How many "Joshua Tree" albums have you written?"

I don't think writing music is hard work. Whether your music goes on to be as popular as the Joshua Tree is pure luck.

Thats what YOU say. Lets ask Bono and the Edge. If they differ from you , how you going to settle it? This is the entire crux of the problem with your silly idea. Everyone is ging to have a differing idea of how tough a job is. YOU cannot know what the difficulty is in any job and neither can I. You would have to set scores and scores of bureaucratic boards to judge job difficulty and then could not possible know how tough a job is.

1)"there is no excess to invest, you paid out all 15 trillion in salary"

There is a natural savings rate. Not everyone spends all their money as soon as they get it. If we pay out $1 trillion per month in income and consumers spend $850 billion per month, there is $150 billion available for investment. If the natural savings rate is not enough, consumption income will be lowered.

Now I know you don't understand. You are completely, utterly ill informed just from this one statement. The "Natural Savings Rate" in America is negative. We spend more than we make. If not, there would not be a need for loans or credit cards.

Sadly there is more that baffles you;

2) Banks cannot invest in startups. Much of the problem with our current fiscal crisis comes from "banks" investing other people's money. They weren't able to manage risk 3 years ago and now you want the banks to manage all risk, and totally with other people's money!! That is absolutely crazy and a surefire pathway to fiscal disaster. Worse yet, there would be no incentive for these so called bankers to truly vet an investment, as they would reap no reward themselves. You really are naive economically. I can help you if you want.

"The Greek black market is over 25% of the published market"

A number that nobody believes. But so long as you make certain activities illegal that people want to do, you will have a black market. If you ban prostitution and drugs, you will have a black market in prostitution in drugs.

Omigosh are you befuddled! I was in Greece back in April, the number is far higher than 25%, I was being kind. Black markets don't arise simply from llegal activities, they arise when there is state control of ANY market. The value of a thing comes from its demand and scarcity. BMs arise when the state ordered clearing price of something is lower than its overall demand. In Greece, workers only have to do a minimum amount inorder to get their fully entitled state ordered benefits. Using the doctor as an example but it more pertains to craftsmen, if the doctor has delivered 100 babies this year, he can refuse to deliver the 101th, once he has reached his full income. You would have to set quotas for performance. A sharp/quick MD could reach his quota in 3 months, and then choose to go on vacation on April 1st. Now if I am a woman who needs an MD for a delivery on 4/2, where am I going to find him/her? I can't, so I will make a cash deal with that Dr to deliver my baby. Of course you could force the MD to work all year, but he will slow down his workload to a crawl, because no matter what, by the end of the year he would get his $435K. You simply do not understand how markets work. BMs arise if something is taxed too high. there is a really big black market in cigarettes in America. People in high tobacco tax states buy their cigs in low tax states. Why do you think states are lining up against Amazon? Amazon is simply a black marketeer that avoids bricks and mortar state and local sales taxes.

In our current system, banks can invest in start ups. And in the system proposed here they will also invest in start ups. They will be investing public funds. So no consumer will take a loss on their investments. And an investment banker's pay will be tied to how well they invest that money. So they will have an incentive to invest well.

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"I was in Greece back in April, the number is far higher than 25%"

lol. Did you commission a study?

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"if the doctor has delivered 100 babies this year, he can refuse to deliver the 101th"

I don't advocate a Greek system or the ability for a doctor to continue to get paid after refusing to deliver a baby. The Mayo Clinic, one of the world's best hospitals, pays their doctors a fixed salary.

You just lost your entire argument, all 785 posts, down the drain with this:

Banks cannot invest in startups."

In our current system, banks can invest in start ups. And in the system proposed here they will also invest in start ups. They will be investing public funds. So no consumer will take a loss on their investments. And an>>> investment banker's pay will be tied to how well they invest that money.<<< So they will have an >>>incentive<<< to invest well.

You just incentivized your system. Your whole entire 785 post argument down the drain. In your system there were no incentives. That was how it worked. Now that you added "commissions" in order to compel people to work harder and better, you violate all your beliefs, whether you believe it or not. You are lost.

"Income is compensation for the amount of work you do. So the only legitimate, justifiable reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do more work, to get them to do difficult work and to get them to give their maximum effort."

Because you have turned everyone into an hourly worker. Hourly workers have zero incentive to produce. Zero. What are you going to do, beat them with a plantation whip if they slack off? How you going to pay sales people? Why do you think salespeople are commissioned? How you going to pay insurance salesmen? How would you pay fishermen? The medical records person typing up Drs reports gets $110k, while the MD with 16 years education doing demanding, incredibly stressful brain surgery, gets $435000?

And 2 can play the "commissioned study" game. Where is your scientific study that confirms a panel of experts can arbitrate work value?And where is your commissioned study that confirms that people when confronted with the chance to
make $110000 as. Janitor or $460000 as rocket scientist, they will choose rocket science?

I do have study after study, for 1000's of years. Indisputable, unassailable scientific proof tempered in the fire of the span human existence. The economic spread between the lowest paid jobs today, the minimum wage jobs of today and the highest skilled jobs is in the factor of 20 or 30 or 40 times,or even more and yet high paying skilled jobs go unfilled. Why? You propose to reduce the multiplier to 4 times, AND YET YOU EXPECT THE HIGHLY SKILLED! DEMANDING JOBS THAT ARENT BEING FILLED AT 50 times EARNINGS WILL BE FILLED AT 4 TIMES EARNINGS. If a 30 times earnings won't spur people to become highly skilled, a differential of only 4 times SURELY won't.

Incomes are paid by the companies that employ you and those companies must remain profitable. So the system essentially works just like it does now.

The primary differences are that although the managers are paid based on the company's performance, the companies are not privately owned. They are publicly financed. And the minimums and maximums you can earn are set democratically at the national level.

So are you saying that someone who works hard and gets ahead should be punished and not allowed to achieve where as someone who has no desire or intention to work hard should be given equal compensation?

Answer my question: if can't get people today to strive to become doctors or lawyers or engineers or entrepreneurs at 20 to 500 times earnings, how are you going to motivate them at only 4 times earnings?

I support socialism because it is a proven system that works. NASA works, the National Science Foundation works, schools work, public universities work, Veterans Hospitals work, police departments work, fire departments work, the FBI works, the CIA works, the military works, the post office works, garbage collection works. And the Nordic countries, which have the most socialism of all the developed countries, have the highest average income in the world, the highest standard of living in the world, the highest quality of life in the world and the citizens with the most happiness in the world directly because they have the most socialism in the developed world.

I do not support communism because we do not have the technology to eliminate scarcity, automate all jobs and make everything free.

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"How does that apply to a small business owner, who owns a pizza shop"

There are actually hundreds if not thousands of people who make that pizza shop work. Farmers, the miners who supply the energy, the companies that make the equipment, etc.

For every 100 people who work, 97 will get a pay raise. That pay raise will be fully offset by the pay decrease of the remaining 3.

Pizza may go up in price. I don't know. What I do know is that increase would be offset by a decrease in price of some other product.

I know that because this plan pays out the same total income to workers that gets paid out today. We are not increasing the total amount that gets paid out.

This is the simple mathematical concept of average.

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Pay is from $115 to $460k. Doctors would not get paid the same as a delivery boy. They would get paid double or quadruple.

What would the price of a meal be at a small restaurant with 4 employees making combined $540,000 a year? I assume you only mean full time workers. That would be a small cafe who gets maybe 60 people a day.
You seem good with math. If they were open everyday of the week and they got 60 people a day the cost of each plate to just cover the employee wages would be $25 for a meal. Doesn't include the cost of the goods, or overhead, and certainly no profit for the business owner. So lets add 25% for the cost of goods (well assume none of it goes to waste, HA) And then 30% for overhead and profit. Now the price of that meal is $40.00
But we really have to consider that the food will be much higher than that because all of the farm hands and the pickers are making $135,000 a year. Thats about a 6 x increase of their current wages. So lets take that 25% cost of goods up to 135% increase and recalculate.
Now that plate of food will be $76. That doesn't include the cost of overhead because of course the utility providers and insurance providers are all making $135,000 where they weren't making that before.
So lets say the average Hamburger and fries will be $100 a plate with a coke.
How long will it be before you are poor again making $135,000 a year?

Priceless, coming from someone who is calling me a moron and already showed doesn't understand basic math. Are you the same person who doesn't understand the difference between median and mean?

Since the total income paid to all car employees will remain the same, because for every 100 workers in this economy, the increase in 97 worker salaries is offset by the decrease in 3 worker salaries, the price of cars will remain the same.

There is no use talking to you since you are clearly so off your rocker you don't even know what you are talking about. If my math was off it was because i was doing it quickly in my head. You have not however addressed the very nature of the price of goods by raising labor significantly. For you to believe that the price of goods would not rise when you increase salaries shows you are delusional.

There is nothing more stupid than being gullible enough to advocate on behalf of the wealthy for a system that pays you a likely $33k instead of at least $115k in order to make sure the wealthy maintain their wealth.

Lets see do I want to work for the city digging ditches and mowing grass all my life or be a life guard at the pool for the same pay 135K a year? People think about it. The idea is cool, but the concept is flawed. The process would devalue the dollar and make it worthless.

Since potentially earning a 400% increase in pay is all that is necessary to motivate people to do difficult work and give their maximum effort, the highest paid workers will earn 4 times more than the lowest workers.

Based on the economy in 2010, that amounts to paying an income from $115k to $460k to all workers.

you communists are something else - you are so concerned about what others have ! when the economy starts to take off some day - and your income rises 50% over 5 years - you should be thrilled. Instead - you look at the people who's income goes up 80% or 100 % and cry that it's not fair! why do you care so much about what other people have? be grateful for your good fortune when it comes. If it's not enough - make it happen!

Your bank job, depending on what it is, would pay the same as someone who bags groceries.

But bagging groceries (and most bank jobs) is a complete waste of human time. Those jobs will be automated with existing technology.

There will be no bank tellers or grocery baggers in a democratic economy. People only do those jobs out of desperation.

Wasting a human life, the most sophisticated piece of machinery in the universe, on placing groceries in a bag is a criminal waste of the most valuable resource we have.

Baggers along with 55% of all the jobs we do will be immediately automated with existing technology.

This will create a constant stream of newly unemployed workers. So another thing we will hold the overall economy accountable for is full employment. We will invest whatever amount is necessary to maintain full employment.

People will have an opportunity to contribute in more useful, important and meaningful ways.

This will keep the economy growing, more efficient and more dynamic than the current economy.

we have the richest poor people in the world. there is no poverty in America so get off of that. define "fair" who is going to be allocating my income? anyone other than me & I shut down production. Thats just the history of the world. why wouldnt I just be a taker instead of a maker?

There are 50 million in poverty, 16% underemployed, 1 in every 5 kids in poverty, 25% of all blacks in poverty, 97% of all workers earning a below average income, 52 million without health insurance, and 55% of all workers doing pointless jobs that can be automated with existing technology.

You must lead a sheltered life. Be grateful.

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"we have the richest poor people in the world"

That was the exact same argument used for slavery.

Poverty and financial struggle is wrong just like slavery is wrong, despite the fact that your standard of living may be rising.

This system would likely pay you 4 times what you earn currently. Advocating for a system that will pay you a fraction of what you should get paid is foolish. But like PT Barnum said, there is a sucker born every minute.

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"who is going to be allocating my income?"

The democratic public. Read my post.

The political process would filter out reasonable compensation proposals where differences in income are limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to be an effective incentive and where every job pays enough so that the economy works well for everyone. And then the worker population votes directly on its approval.

So we can't predict what the exact final plan will be.

But what we can predict is that you will not come up with any valid scientific study that says we need to pay people much more than $230k (or twice the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to do difficult work or that we need to pay people much more than $460k (or four times the amount as everyone else) in order to get them to give their maximum effort.

You do not have to pay someone billions in income in order to get them to build a social networking website or a cell phone. In fact, we know you don't even have to pay people anything at all when you see all the free open source software and maker faire inventions.

If Mark Zuckerberg was offered the choice to make $115k sweeping floors or $460k programming the world's most popular social networking website or to do nothing because he doesn't get out of bed for anything less than $5 billion, he would choose to build facebook for $460k. And he would be as dedicated as he is now.

The same goes for Steve Jobs.

We also know that studies show the general public wants equality, not inequality. So they will never vote to lower their own income in order to give celebrities or Kim Kardashian or athletes or bankers or anyone else the ability to earn, say, 10 times what they make, let alone 500 times or 10,000 times.

The voting public will make sure differences in income remain where they are supposed be: just enough to get people to do difficult work and to give their maximum effort.

When we limit differences in income to just what is necessary to be an effective incentive, there is enough income to make every citizen wealthy. And when you make every citizen wealthy, you put an end to nearly every social problem we have.

My solution is we need to get rid of the minimum wage. It's stopping a lot small business from hiring entry level employees. The positions are not filled because owners can't afford to pay minimum wages and the other taxes pus insurance to break even. This is the plan of large corporations to hold down the common man. The jobs could give non working teenagers a starting point in a career.

I don't advocate for anybody. This is a matter of fact. It's life. Another matter of fact is that I have a job, my wife has a job, and my son has a job. So if you never had a job the big difference is that you could get a job and get Paid for learning. Then a person gets the chance to develope and move into other fields of employment that will pay more. Take my message to heart. My family has jobs. We work.

I'm actually worried about our constitutional rights of justice and freedom. So this topic will have to be address on another day. Right now why don't we all get on the same page and scream as loud as we can, like we are dying in the flames of hells fire.

If you click on the link, it goes through the math and examples as to why redistributing an amount of expenses does not increase that amount of expenses. It also has a link that shows that the total incomes paid out are the same as the total income paid out in 2010 along with sources to those numbers.

I am asking you; How will companies pay those types of salaries to stock boys? By raising the prices through the roof. Everyone will make more money but everything will cost so much that they still won't be able to afford it.

But when you have 100 employees stocking shelves in the supermarket, what do you think the bread will cost if each one earns $100,000? There aren't anywhere near as many people making over $460k as there are poor people in the US.

I can't really argue because I don't know enough about it. You may be right but I can't imagine that increasing the minimum wage that much would keep any small business in business. How would they pay their employees? If you redistribute the wealth of the rich forcefully why would anyone ever aspire to make it? They would fear losing it in the next redistribution. We'd have a new USSR in the US. Goods and services would suck.

You don't understand. The production in the economy does not work that way. The money that the 1% are slurping up represents productive value. If the money is given to others instead of the 1%, the productivity of the economy does not inherently change. (It can change because this sort of thing can change incentives, but as the OP mentioned, not nearly as much as people think. I would add that you simply have to ask, would it make a better world for US, or not? I mean really, over the long run, no short sightedness. And the answer is that yes, clearly a more fair distribution of the production of the economy based on who is working rather than who happens to own everything though accidents of history and worse the allowance of predation upon the rest of us, is definitely good for us.)

Thus, the increase in your income does, in fact, represent a larger fraction of economic productivity. The price of things will not go up. Right now you pay X dollars for something, the vast majority of it goes to the 1%ers that own the company you paid the money for something to, and then a tiny fraction goes to the people who actually do all the work.

Under this new system, the money just goes to the people who are working, who are putting time in, instead of 1%ers. Pretty straightforwards. Theoretically, if the economy did not change as a result of this, there would be no effect at all on the buying power of a dollar. A dollar is a dollar, no matter who owns it.

It would change the economy, though, the question is by how much. It is certainly an interesting road to consider, anyway, and can have a lot of promise.

who is advocating some particular wage? the problem is there are no jobs... bottom line. how did this turn into a aurgument about how much? corporations are sitting on 1 trillion dollars and doing nothing while amerca shift from a middle class (50k) nation into a third world country

That's not a bad point, but it sort of depends on the quality of the masses. 100 years ago, most would have been illiterate and without a college education.

Redistributing the wealth from the Old Paradigm to the New is a totally worthy proposition. That is to say from the Old Wealth and the notion of individualism to this new era of collaboration and cooperation. Totally valid.

Yes. There was literacy imbalances 100 yrs ago. Today, there are occupy camps with violent and nonviolent members. There will always be diversity! That is why equal distribution of wealth will never work - it will never be equal. Look at any social system: ants, bees, elephants: there are leaders, those who get to eat more, and those who get less. Its life!

I commend you on the thought you put into this post.. but you didnt go far enough.

If the lowest wage is 137k or whatever, how much will a meal cost at a restaurant? You have to pay 137k for a dishwasher, a bus boy, a waiter, a chef, a host, a bartender. that right there is 822,000 you need to earn just to cover LABOR.. with a small restaurant of 6 tables, open 360 nights a year, you need to make 2283$/night just to cover labor costs. If you can turn over each table 3 times, you can serve 18 parties.. and each table needs to net ~$130 this is all just labor.

Imagine how much you are going to pay for food (how much are those tomatoes going to cost if you are paying people 137k to pick them), and rent etc.

Income must equal GDP. The bea calculates GDP using 2 methods. They add up the price of all final goods and services. And they add up the total income paid out to everyone. The 2 numbers must be equal. The link I gave was to the total income table, not the GDP table.

If your assumptions are indeed correct, how do you explain the above link? That is actually households so the average per person is actually less than $60K per year. I think your error lies in the fact that GDI also includes corporate profits.

It does address your example. The increase pay for your dishwasher is offset by the decreased pay of the owner. Some goods and services will cost more. They will be offset by goods and services that will cost less. Overall, on average, price remains the same.

If you think the fact that we currently pay $15 trillion in income and in the system I propose we will pay out $15 trillion in income and you think that means nothing as far as overall inflation, I don't know what else to tell you.

Fine, you do not seem to want to LEARN. You havent even addressed any of my questions, you just say the same thing over and over.

Continue spewing your plan and seem like an fool. You aren't ignorant for talkiing about an idea that wont work, but for refusing to learn and incorporate other viewpoints (or atleast learning to argue against them)

Continue in your blissful ignorance so people may laugh.. and Ill stop replying so no more free bumps for you

That is correct. Labor costs do not go up. Since labor costs do not go up, prices, on average, remain the same.

In 2010 we paid a total of $14.5 trillion in income to all workers. In the plan outlined here, we will pay out a total of $14.5 trillion in income to all workers.

Since we are paying out the same total income, it is mathematically impossible for prices overall to rise.

If we paid everyone $115k to $460k and that amounted to a total of $30 trillion, you would be correct. Prices on average would rise. But when you go through the math, you see that the total is in fact $14.5 trillion.

That may not seem intuitive because nearly every worker is getting a pay raise. But that is only because income is currently allocated so unequally. Out of every 100 workers, 97 will get a pay raise. But that will be offset by the pay decrease in the remaining 3.

I've been trying to have you reason it out so you can see, but you seemto get stuck at 'we are paying the same net income to people, so costs don't change' - which is WRONG.

What you are miissing is that LABOR goes into COSTS, if you raise labor, you have raised costs. (are you refuting labor costs did not go up?) Previously, you might have 5 people getting paid 60$/day to pick tomatoes (60/day*350= 21500) and the owner getting maybe 100k on a lucky year. Now you are paying 110k to those 6 people.

GDP may not change in the short term (in the long term it will - because prices will have gone up).

Also, consider this, you are probably arguing that Bill Gates 3billion dollar income will be in effect redistributed to 5000 people (just making these numbers up) - so the net 'payment' for labor hasnt changed - but thats not entirely correct because bill gate (and most people who have the sense not to spend more then they earn) put alot of $$ into savings and investments -- thus this $$ never gets into the economy of purchasing real goods. If you now put an extra howerver many trillions of dollars into chasing goods, price will also go up.

(so you have prices going up due to costs going up, and due to demand going up)

Clearly, I have not recognized labor as a cost in any of my comments. Whenever I referred to the $14.5 trillion, that was only for the carpeting used in office buildings. I forgot to account for labor.

And out of that $14.5 trillion produced, some of it is Bill Gates' savings. So I should probably let the BEA know that their GDP number is wrong. But don't worry, I will give you credit for catching their error.

I now realize it is mathematically impossible to allocate income in any way other than the way it is currently. If you or I spend some of the money the wealthy currently spend, it will just cause inflation. That money only works when wealthy people are spending it.

you are saying its not difficult to grasp, and you know exactly how it is going to work.. yet you have not elucidated HOW it would work.

another example: there are jobs called a home health aid.. hundreds of thousands if not millions of them... their jobs are to help elderly people with their daily chores.. like cook, clean, shop.. it enables elderly people a modicum of independence without having to move into a nursing home (ie: expensive). Currenlty this is paid for mostly by the government.

If you had to pay each of these people 110k, WHERE would this moeny come from?

We are not increasing the total income that is getting paid out. All we are doing is reallocating existing income. So on average, costs will remain the same. And since costs will remain the same, prices will also remain the same.

For example, if a company has just 2 workers and one was paid $200k and the other was paid $30k, their total costs would be $230k.

If they decided to reallocate income so that they were both paid $115k each, their costs would still remain $230k. Since their costs didn't change, their prices won't change.

Even though we significantly raised the income of the guy making $30k, costs, overall, have not gone up because it was offset by lowering the income of the guy who was making $200k.

Some workers will make more. That increase will be offset by some workers making less. Some goods and services may be priced more. That increase will be offset by some that would be priced less.

Who gets a higher wage or a lower wage, I have no idea. What products might be high or lower, I have no idea.

What I know is that TOTAL costs have not gone up. So costs on average will remain the same.

I know that total costs do not go up because in 2010 we paid out a total of $14.5 trillion in income. In my proposed plan, we will pay out a total of $14.5 trillion.

The average income in the US is $135k per year. To learn how that is calculated, read this comment:

If you don't understand why not knowing the specifics of who gets paid more and who gets paid less does not change the fact that we are not increasing expenses, and therefore prices on average will remain the same, I don't know what else to tell you.

Yes raise it to $110.000.00 a year. Standby for $15.00 big Mac's and 9 dollar a gallon gasoline. Milk will be $10.00 a gallon. I can't wait , bring it on. You morons will be so far down on the pecking order you will have to look up to see down. $45.00 a pound steak, $14.00 a pound tomatoes, I can't wait.

With this plan you wouldn't have to graduate high school!!! In fact you wouldn't have to go to school at all. Just by showing up to work you get $115,000 a year, what's wrong with that. Just think of the money we would save not having to pay for school! Has anyone thought of that?

He wants people to be paid to go to school because it is "work." I am not sure if the students will be making the $110K or the $230K because it is mentally challenging to think. It is all a bit fuzzy - LOL.

Good point. I wonder if graduation is a requirement or only the attempt at graduating would count? After all, not everyone is smart enough to graduate so why should they be punished? Maybe we should just give everyone the $460K for doing absolutely nothing and save the brain damage of trying to figure out all the schematics.

What's going to stop people from having 10 kids just they can get them all jobs at 15 years old? They could then bring in $1,380,000 a year!!! Unless they all were in construction the they could make $ 2,760,000 a year!!!!

Example I buy 1,000,000 barrels of oil. Instead of placing it on the USA, I decide to place it outside the USA. Meanwhile I have all my money on Europeans and Chinese banks. Of course I decide that all my officers will work from our central office in Dubai. Meanwhile I just contract the people at the ports to move the goods.

The ones that made the ridiculous amount of money are not the small or medium business that create jobs. If you force a ridiculous minimum salary the only thing you will acomplish is to kill those business. Meanwhile the ones that are actually making money (aka hedge funds and multi national companies) will only move their business outside the USA, including the CEO, etc. So there will be no money to be redistributed from those companies.

In other words, done this way it will be the most effective way to get rid of all the jobs and all the resources except the local ones.

[-]0 points
by JonFromSLC
(-107)
from West Valley City, UT
3 years ago

The system is what you make of it. If you spend your time constructively making something useful out of yourself, the system will reward that. If you spend your time complaining that you don't have everything your parents have, and actually have to work for the things you get, the system will treat you accordingly.

[-]0 points
by JonFromSLC
(-107)
from West Valley City, UT
3 years ago

Well good thing we don't live there huh? I'm happy as a pig in shit that I live here. I also don't sit around and blame other people for my plight. I'm not rich, I live practically paycheck to paycheck with a few bucks overlapping. I work my ass off every day to pay my bills. That's what our grandparents would have called a normal working adult. But alas, our grandparents are dying and so is their honesty, work ethic, and self reliant attitude.

[-]0 points
by JonFromSLC
(-107)
from West Valley City, UT
3 years ago

I'm happy where I'm at. I don't have to be rich, drive a Ferrari and have 7 extra bedrooms I'm not using. I don't mind paying my bills. It makes me feel responsible. I'm living paycheck to paycheck because I've put myself in a position where I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I have no one to blame but myself. And I'm ok with that. My Mother raised a man. Not a boy.

I went to a top biz school, minored in economics, worked for the FED, worked as an investment banker and owned several businesses. I am pretty well informed on the subject. What is childish is only being able to say LOL.

If that is true then please explain how a small business making only $150K in annual sales and employess 3 people currenly will be able to pay all those employees $110K per year like you are proposing? Two people will be laid off. Now there is a surplus of $40K. Who gets it?

3 people each making $50K per year? $50K is not a bad income level. Not that it matters, under your plan 2 of them would be making $0 because they had to be laid off. However, the person who got to increase their pay to $110K would be ecstatic. I guess they would need to draw straws to see who get the windfall and who gets the shaft.

You did none of the above. If I'm wrong, you'll be able to respond to me by explaining the ramifications of the dollar serving as the reserve currency on the American economy. Answer within a minute, and I'll consider buying what you're selling.

This is proven by your infantile response to my question about the ramifications of the dollar being the reserve currency. I have to admit, your tactic is cute, however; you wait until someone points you to some facts then recite them back saying, "THAT old theory? Why EVERYONE knows 'bout that ! Catch up !"

No matter, I can tell your only REAL objective is to be noticed and get lot's of comments. I'm happy to have aided you in your cause up to now, but I have more imprtant things to tend to. Good luck !

I'm not looking to win a popularity contest. I posted this because democratic socialism is the only rational way to run an economy. Our current system, which lets tens of millions suffer even though we have the resources to ensure nobody has to suffer, is barbaric.

You do realize you make no sense whatsoever right? If everybody suddenly makes $100,000+ a year, than prices will simply go up to match. The worth of money is controlled by offer and demand, not only the number on the bill.

Hand me a 200 page economics textbook and I'll point out at least 100 to you. You realize that no one will clean gutters or powerwash your deck for less than about $1-2,000 after this right? And $110,000 won't seem like so much anymore. The people that would suffer are the ones working for themselves, it would devalues their labor because they aren't working under the ridiculous imposition of minimum wage laws. I own a business and I probably work for about $5 an hour.

What if you don't go to college but work as a construction worker which is physically demanding. Do you make 4 times as much? How about the brain surgeons? They went to college have a ton of loans to pay back but their jobs are deemed only to be worth $110K per year because they aren't doing physically demanding work like back breaking hard labor. Wouldn't we all want to be in the physically demanding jobs to earn the most? What about managers? Is that considered to be worth 4 times as much or just the same as everyone else?

The details of what I propose, just to give you an idea, is that everyone gets paid $110k. Everyone who works a physically or mentally difficult job (science, computers, engineering, medicine, construction, mining, or farming) would get paid $230k. And the top 2.5% of workers (the most difficult like surgeons and the top performers in performance based jobs like executive management or entrepreneurship) would get $460k.

Those numbers are based on the GDP and workforce in 2010.

If we wanted to make the top pay $1 million, for example, the bottom pay would then be $100k. The final plan would be determined democratically.

I also think you should get paid to go to school. School is work. It is training for a job. It is not a consumption item. So you should get paid to go to school.

The billionaires and media personalities - who make hundreds of millions in income and who tell you that the only way the economy can work is if you and 97% of all workers make a below average income and struggle or live in poverty so that they can have most of the income - are absolutely correct. And if you believe them, you are not being incredibly gullible.

The billionaires and media personalities - who tell you that if we allocate income in any way other than the way it is now, that society will turn into a totalitarian Stalin dictatorship with labor camps, murdering political dissenters and secret police - are absolutely correct. And if you believe them, you are not being incredibly gullible.

The billionaires and media personalities - who tell you that the only freedom a person should have is the freedom to have a 1% chance to live the good life - are realistic, not barbaric and uncivilized.

The billionaires and media personalities - who make hundreds of millions in income and who tell you that the only way the economy can work is if you and 97% of all workers make a below average income and struggle or live in poverty so that they can have most of the income - are absolutely correct. And if you believe them, you are not being incredibly gullible.

The billionaires and media personalities - who tell you that if we allocate income in any way other than the way it is now, that society will turn into a totalitarian Stalin dictatorship with labor camps, murdering political dissenters and secret police - are absolutely correct. And if you believe them, you are not being incredibly gullible.

The billionaires and media personalities - who tell you that the only freedom a person should have is the freedom to have a 1% chance to live the good life - are realistic, not barbaric and uncivilized.

Next, what about taxes? Does everyone pay the same? Do the people making 2.5% more pay that same 2.5% more in taxes?

Let's say that a company has 20 employees. They are currently making $1M in sales per year. The CEO is making $250K and the rest is split appropriately amongst the other employees. Under your plan, the CEO gets a pay raise (to $460K) and so does everyone else making less than $110K. However, if the company is a construction company then most of the employees now need to be paid $230K and the remaining employees will be getting the $110K. That will only net 3-4 jobs (depending on the level of job) and 17 people will have lost theirs. How will the company grow after having to lay off almost all of their work force?

You can have a progressive tax or a flat tax. It has no bearing on the allocation of income.

Employees are not a company's only expense. Since we are just redistributing existing income, on average the prices will remain the same. Some things will increase in price. Some things will decrease.

But just increasing the pay of your workers to $115k or $230k does not mean your expenses increase. It is offset by the very, very small few who make millions and by the decreasing prices of products made by people who make those incomes.

In small businesses no one makes millions so there is no money pool to draw from like you imagine in your Socialist utopia. All the small businesses would either go out of business or lay off 75% - 95% of their work force.

We are not increasing the total income that is getting paid out. All we are doing is reallocating existing income. So on average, costs will remain the same. And since costs will remain the same, prices will also remain the same.

For example, if a company has just 2 workers and one was paid $200k and the other was paid $30k, their total costs would be $230k.

If they decided to reallocate income so that they were both paid $115k each, their costs would still remain $230k. Since their costs didn't change, their prices won't change.

So how about a owner of a McDonald's franchise? The average McDs owner nets about 10% of sales for each restaurant owned. The average McDs makes anywhere between $491,000 - $2.3 million per year. If you want everyone to make $110K per year then the lower end McDs will have 4 employees (including the owner) while another McDs will have 20. If the lower McDs has a slow year then someone has to get laid off so the other 3 can still get their $110K leaving 3 employees to run the restaurant. If their sales are affected by the poor service due to such a small work force then another person gets laid off until the restaurant just closes and everyone loses their job. Everyone can't be equal. It is just the facts of life.

They do know how to run the McDs which is why they are in business with a lot of employees. Under your system, the McDs is making the same amount but they can only employ 4 people instead of the 30 they currently employ. The location of the store didn't change and neither did their average yearly income. The thing that changed was your idea of them having to pay $110K per employee. With your idea you just shut down a business and put everyone out of work. How does that help the economy?

If a store needs 30 people, that is how many they will hire. Even though they will likely get an increase in pay, the McDs total expenses are not increased because the people who are currently making millions will now be making no more than $460k.

McDs are franchised. The person making the money is the owner and that amount varies depending on location. If the store only does $491K in sales then the owner is currently making $49K per year (10% of sales). He could only hire 4 people based on your model because he has to pay everyone $110K per year. It won't matter that the store needs 30 employees he can only afford 4.

I can't for the life of me understand their thinking. It is the same mentality that allows kids to all get blue ribbons and trophies now. No one has to work for it, it is just handed to them for showing up. Where is the incentive to try harder? The losers know they will get the blue ribbon anyway and the winners know it is nothing special to be the best. Everyone loses.

I'm talking about the company owner. If he invests $5 million to start a company and create 200 jobs, only to find out that the government has arbitrarily decided that he has to pay his workers five times more than he expected when he formed the company, and he won't make any return on his investment, he might as well fire all of his employees and close the company to cut his losses....... Wait a second, why am I arguing with a troll?

Just like you don't have a right to harm others or print your own money, you would not have a right to own your own business.

Instead, you would have a right to start your own company and a right to an income from $155k to $460k which is a much better deal than you are getting now.

I do not advocate a society ruled by wealthy business owners. I advocate democracy, freedom and equality instead - a society where power rests with everyone equally.

That was the goal of the Enlightenment.

I believe everyone has a birth right to the equal freedom to act - to pursue their happiness however they define it - without political coercion or restraint and without economic coercion or restraint so long as they do not reasonably violate that same right in others. Every citizen gets an equal freedom to act, speak, and think; equal treatment under the law; equal votes; and equal income for equal work.

Owning a business, which allows you to collect unearned income, concentrate that income in the hands of the few and leaves everyone else to struggle financially, harms others. It is no different than just printing your own money.

The workers who used to make whatever that $15,500 person was buying will now be working making tvs.

What is bought will certainly change. But it will not cause inflation. Inflation happens when demand exceeds supply. The increase in tv demand was offset by the decrease in demand for whatever the $15,500 guy was buying when he had the $15,500.

No, that is not correct. You are assuming that rich billionaires are spending their money in the same way that it would be spent when distributed. Most of the money rich people have is in the bank and not being spent. If it was redistributed, the money would move a lot more on the everyday market and this would create hyper-inflation. Please read economy books. You really do seem sophomoric. Sorry to have to say it, but it's true.

We produce $15 trillion in goods and services. In order to buy them, we are going to pay out $15 trillion in income. The only thing we are doing is allocating that $15 trillion differently. If we paid out $30 trillion income, then that would cause inflation.

Well sounds great to me. Why don't you get three friends together and give it a try to see how it works for you first. Maybe start with $400.00 dollars.

Just a few easy steps. Give everyone an equal share of the pie, say $100.00 each. Next week don't give anyone anything because everything is shut down and none of the original $400.00 has been put back into the economic system to pay salaries the second week and presto: the economic order comes to an end. We all get our fair share of the pie and again: presto: we all live happily after. This sure would change the world overnight. I just don't want to be part of such a change.

4 people cannot get together and start their own economy. Your analogy is ridiculous.

You don't want to be part of a fair economy where you are paid enough to live a wealthy lifestyle and not ruled over by a class of wealthy? You would be free to move to Africa or China. They have plenty of poverty for you.

Please make a note that they have some of the richest, or soon to be richest, people on the earth. What was that leader of Libya worth when he died??

If you cannot apply economics to the micro - how you going to explain the macro. Sorry if the point I was trying to make did not make any sense to you - really not my problem to try and explain it any more simply.

And in reply to your last statement. In no way do I expect to be paid enough even in America to "live a wealthy lifestyle" as you descibe the conditions for such to exist.

And if you think that a farm family of Mom, Dad and two kids do not have their own economy - we are too far apart to even get close to understanding each other.

We are not increasing the total income that is getting paid out. All we are doing is reallocating existing income. So on average, costs will remain the same. And since costs will remain the same, prices will also remain the same.

For example, if a company has just 2 workers and one was paid $200k and the other was paid $30k, their total costs would be $230k.

If they decided to reallocate income so that they were both paid $115k each, their costs would still remain $230k. Since their costs didn't change, their prices won't change.

I think you may have lost me; I thought you said you wanted to give everybody 115 - 400k (?). That would mean that the price of all items - homes, cars, consumer items - would immediately hyper-inflate. And if that occurs, you've gone full circle, right back to where you started from. The same sense of inequality would immediately reinstate itself.

To the below: well, if you're redistributing but not redistributing to me, then don't bother.

Paying everyone $115k - $460k does NOT mean everyone is getting an increase in income. That would cause inflation. It means some will make more income and some will make less. But the total income being paid out is exactly the same as it is now. So prices will remain the same.

We are not increasing the total income that is getting paid out. We are just redistributing the existing income.

What I am proposing is replacing our current system, where people are treated like heads of cattle or bushels of wheat, where your entire standard of living and quality life is dictated by your ability to sell yourself in a market you have very little power over, with a system where your income is determined democratically.

If you want to start a business and hire people, you would have to pay whatever the income is for that position. You would not be risking your own money and would not be the owner of the business. Your capital would come from banks who would lend you enough to cover whatever hiring costs you will incur.

There are no longer any super super rich. The most you can earn is $460k.

Wait, so you want a small group of people (our elected Government or the Banks) to have complete control over all the money and resources and determine who can start a business and who can't?

You think the Banks should have complete control over the economy?

Or would it be local banks regulated by a central bank (or central Government)?

This seriously sounds like a power trip. I don't want someone having that much control. I'd rather have some rich people than a totalitarian government banking cartel.

Why don't we just work at creating Municipality Banks and States Banks (like in North Dakota), and see if that helps out before we attempt to radically (and violently) take over the entire economy and put it in the hands of the Banks and/or Government?

Investments will be allocated by professional investment bankers who know how to invest. They will work for companies called banks. They will be regulated and spread throughout the country to meet our investment needs.

They have power over your life in the same way that delis who make all the sandwiches have power over your life.

A bank in a democratic economy is nothing like a bank in a capitalist economy.

I can make my own sandwich though. Are you saying that only delis can make sandwiches in this world of "yours." And that is just the problem, you say "our needs." Who's needs? Who decides that? Even if it put to a vote, isn't that totalitarianism in the form of majority? What if the popular vote is that money for growing Kale isn't necessary, yet it is the most nutritionally dense food there is.

What you propose is exactly what OWS is opposing. "Investments will be allocated by professional investment bankers who know how to invest." That's what got us into this mess. Investments should be made by individuals, and banks if a group of individuals empowers them to, not by an elite group of banks propped up by the Government.

This is control. This is power. That is the problem. Let go. Occupy Yourself.

Competent investors should be the ones who invest. But investors don't dictate anything. If they invest poorly, they will be out of a job. And consumers determine what is produced by how they spend their money, not investors.

They don't have power over anything. Their job is to figure out what consumers want.

I'm confused. You are proposing a free-market. Investors invest, if they invest poorly they lose their investments. Consumers determine what products succeed through the market. That's free-market capitalism. That is what most Americans want.

The problem is that we have a Government that is able to step in, bail out, subsidize, or regulate industries so that certain business succeed and others fail. They try to determine what is best for lack of faith in customers, investors and the free-market. This is what is referred to as "crony-capitalism." It could easily be referred to as crony-socialism as well.

I think most socialists don't want to end up like the Soviet Union, however, the empowering of Government usually ends up with the people losing their power and freedom to make their own choices as individuals, rather than as a collective (which, always ends up as a few individuals claiming to speak for the collective and doing what they want; usually benefiting them and their friends and not the people).

Voluntary community is good, forced collective is bad.

I think we agree on the goal, but disagree on how to get there.

I think we need to take a step back and let go of control rather than step up and take control. I practice Political-Judo, or Zen-Politics. However you want to look at it.

Bailing out as a policy, subsidies, and regulation, and the trend of more and more power to the Government to manage the economy is exactly what the USSR was all about. It collapsed because of the Arms Race and their inability to compete with our ability to produce more and more weapons. Not really something I agree with, but it is what happened.

So, then the conversation we should be having, to clear it all up, is if people are free to innovate independently or if they have to go through a committee and put the business in the hands of a "public entity."

In the USSR, when Tetris was made, the Government took it over and kept profits for 6 years. Tetris!

I try to look at it like, if I did all the work to grow a garden, do I get to determine what is done with the food? If I build a "business" (a restaurant, a computer company, etc.) do I get to do what I want with that and keep the "profits," or does it automatically get owned by "everyone" and I have to negotiate for control over my own creation?

I completely disagree with you on this. I don't think you need to have the government own every business to have equality, I think that leads to a poor equality if anything. It sounds like slavery. Like it is assumed that every individual is owned, their work is owned and their products are owned; by the government, which claims to represent them.

Have you ever worked for a small business? How is a coffee shop suppose to pay their employees $115K and function? It wouldn't be able to make profits.

The economy will be a separate institution? What will the institution look like?

And I'm not saying the US and the USSR are the same, I'm saying that what you are talking about is similar to a communist system where the State (or some other similar type of institution; duck is a duck) owns all industry and business, people need to go to this master institution to lobby for funds to start any sort of project and any profits made from this endeavor are given back to this institution to keep the whole game going. Sounds self destructive and depressing.

What if I just want to get a plot of land and do what I want on it and work with people who want to and work out our own deal to do that? What if I don't want to be a part of your system, where would I fit in in your society?

"where the State (or some other similar type of institution; duck is a duck) owns all industry and business"

Currently, all business is concentrated in the hands of the wealthy.

I advocate that business, just like government, should be owned equally by everyone. We should not have an elite class ruling any of those institutions.

.

"people need to go to this master institution to lobby for funds to start any sort of project"

Yes, if you want to borrow millions of dollars, you have to apply to a bank for those funds. We cannot just give away all the money everyone asks for. Applying for investment funds is how the system currently works. And that system would continue.

The difference, of course, is that the entrepreneur would not be personally responsible for the investment funds and he or she would not be the personal owner of the business. However, he or she would be responsible for its success and would get paid the maximum income possible if it becomes a success.

.

"What if I just want to get a plot of land and do what I want on it and work with people who want to and work out our own deal to do that?"

You cannot just do what you want on your land. I don't want you poisoning it or building a business there if it is a residential district, etc. We need rules that make society work well for everyone.

.

"What if I don't want to be a part of your system, where would I fit in in your society?"

You are free to change it. But you cannot make up and live by your own laws.

If Kobe is not willing to be a celebrity basketball player for $460k, there are millions of other people who would gladly take his place.

If you work 40 hours per week just like everyone else, competently performing your job for a company that is profitable and willing to hire you, you should make at least $110k. Because ball boys, or whoever, are human beings too, who have lives to live, and who deserve to be treated just like everyone else.

Nobody should live a life of poverty or financial struggle because that is inhumane and we have more than enough goods and services to make everyone wealthy.

Taking Kobe's place is not just putting another warm body on the Lakers team. Kobe and other stars are paid their millions because they make even more millions for the team owners. Fans want to see the stars not some doughy slob huffing and puffing up and down the court.

Fans will see the best athletes willing to play. If a player doesn't want to work, that doesn't mean they stop watching the sport.

Kobe and team owners making millions skew the allocation of income so badly that they force 97% of all workers to make a below average income. That is not a fair system. There is no justification for it. When someone buys a basketball ticket, they don't do it because they want kobe to earn $10 million and for them to earn less.

When I buy a Lakers ticket I don't care what Kobe makes because it does not affect me personally in my daily life. All the power to Kobe or LeBron or Tom Cruise or Matt Damon for the money they can demand and someone is willing to pay them.

That misunderstanding of a fundamental economic concept is probably shared by many.

Although the pie grows, the pie is only so big at any given time. If 1 person takes most of the slices, that leaves everyone else with very little.

The reason why 97% of all workers make a below average income is because we have a system that allows some to make 10,000 times more than others. For every dollar Kobe gets paid above average, someone has to get paid 1 dollar below average.

"For every dollar Kobe gets paid above average, someone has to get paid 1 dollar below average." Post your proof of who is getting paid $1 below average. Not just some general idea, but who is actually getting paid less because Kobe is getting $20 million a year?

The average income is $135k. 97% of all workers make less than that amount. The reason why is because income is concentrated in the hands of people like Kobe who make millions. It is simple math. If the pie has 10 slices and Kobe takes 9, there is only 1 left for everyone else.

There is nothing more idiotic than being gullible enough to advocate on behalf of the wealthy for a system that pays you a likely $33k instead of at least $115k in order to make sure the wealthy maintain their wealth.

No, that is incorrect. I have been through economics 101 much more recently than you, apparently.

A dollar is a dollar, no matter who owns it. If it is distributed throughout the people in the economy or all sucked up by a few leeches at the top makes no inherent difference.

It may appear at first that the cost of service sector jobs would go up, but then more people would enter the service economy and the price would stabilize. 1%ers would be less able to buy services of others than they are now, but those of us who actually work for all the money we get and get paid more ordinary amounts would have no real problem; if you want to hire someone who gets paid as much as you do, on an hourly basis, then that is exactly the sort of thing that you would see here.

I don't know about you, but I have effectively, a dentist, doctor, and teacher, and a lot of government civil servants that get paid just as much as I do working for me already, and it seems to be just fine. Those of us who get paid normal amounts will not be the worse for this.

Things like childcare might go up, because those people tend to get paid crap. However ultimately the productivity of the economy would still be there, to the extent that this tweak does not change the total output. So you would, for example, spend more on childcare, but you would still have more left over at the end of the month.

To the extent that this did not affect the productivity of the economy, it will necessarily be better for US. To simplify things, simply consider all the nice stuff that the 1%er's excess wealth, the fraction (almost all of it) that they did not really earn can buy. Now imagine that divvied up among the rest of us, who actually produced that wealth. It will not ever be a net loss for us, although things will change a little.

Yes it will go up, everything will go up. Well everything produced in the US will go up to due to the added production cost of having to pay everyone far more than they're worth. Back to today's $300,000 house. The cost of materials will go up b/c the sawmill worker now makes 100k, the concrete will go up b/c the truck driver now makes 100k /year and so on. Now that house that used to cost $300k now cost $13 million. For the same reasons cars will go up in price, energy will skyrocket, food will skyrocket, everything will skyrocket. Again hyperinflation. Also again you fail the shit out of econ 101 . Everything imported goes up as well due to increased supply chain costs and increased demand due to the sudden surge in income. Your 110k min wage idea is total fucking stupidity.

Read what I said. Eve though prices will go up the 97%ers will still be way ahead of where they are now. You are fucking stupid. And the minimum wage thing is not by idea and I do not subscribe to it. Just trying to educate the bystanders against this common rumor that ignorant dolts like you keep spreading.

money only looses value in a fractional reserve system. what about if we change the system to a resource based economy? money would no longer be an incentive, but the incentive would switch to producing more resources.

On a national scale it will cause inflation, with more people with more income, people will be more willing to pay higher prices, demand will go up and along with that demand cost will rise as well. In short order 100K would be the new poverty line.

No, that is incorrect. There is a little thing called "real value". As long as the productivity of the economy does not go down too much, and it might not at all or even go up as people jump at the chance to get to work and earn that kind of money or whatever else, then there is no problem. The productivity is still there, and all that production has to go somewhere.

That would be inflation within a certain domain, which is not actually guaranteed to occur (the construction of higher density housing like nice condos, or better transportation technology or better urban planning can counteract the restrictions on the land supply, and with $135k each there would be a lot more options on the table for people to implement to sooth the land problem) which says nothing about the economy as a whole.

There would not necessarily be inflation in the economy as a whole, and ultimately what matters is that we the real people who do all the work in this country, would still have a lot more left over at the end of the month, while still having all the wealth we have now. That is what matters.

And the workers who used to build $10 million mansions will now build $300k house to meet that demand.

That money that is now being used to buy houses was being used to buy something else. Whatever those other things are will no longer be bought so those workers would move to new jobs to meet the different demand.

Whatever man...when my car broke down last year, i got so frustrated I started throwing nickels and pennies, and quarters at it. And you know what? the damn sonofabitch still wouldn't start...and now i have scratches on my car. Who's fault is that? Well, it certainly is not mine.

You slipped and made your disingenuousness obvious by pretending to take the sarcasm literally, about throwing money at the car. You're either a performance art skit, or you're profoundly autistic and completely unable to detect sarcasm. (In which case you also wouldn't be able to understand anything about economics or sociology, which actually would explain a few things...)

If I were as smart as you are then you think that maybe I would be able to explain why raising the minimum wage to $115k/year would not lead to inflation that would bring the new poverty line to $115k/year?

Go ahead and show me how it's done, since you're so smart. How is that supposed to work? Explain it to me, genius.

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche.

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Wait buddy boy! There will be INFLATION. You're not just reallocating wealth, you're redistributing purchasing power on an individual level. It's a question of offer and demand. Now, everyone can buy a Porsche

Perhaps you prefer an economy ruled by rich people in a society filled with 50 million in poverty, 1 in 5 kids in poverty, 25% of all blacks in poverty and 97% of all workers making a below average income. But most do not.

You seem to assume that all products and services will cost the same once everyone is making this 100K+ a year. I can assure you prices will rise to eat every dollar of the increase (which HAS to happen by the way, rules of economics and all) and soon enough, whatever base dollar amount you set will be the new poverty line.

All we are doing is redistributing existing income. Redistributing existing income does not cause inflation. The increase in the minimum worker pay to $115k is fully offset by the decrease in the top earning worker pay to $460k.

We are not increasing the total income that is getting paid out. So on average, costs will remain the same. And since costs will remain the same, prices will also remain the same.

For example, if a company has just 2 workers and one was paid $200k and the other was paid $30k, their total costs would be $230k.

If they decided to reallocate income so that they were both paid $115k each, their costs would still remain $230k. Since their costs didn't change, their prices won't change.

Some worker incomes will go up. They will be offset by other worker incomes going down. Some goods and services might go up in price. They will be offset be others going down in price. But since total expenses remains the same, prices on average remains the same.

Since income allocation in this country is so unequal, out of every 100 workers, 97 will get a pay raise which will be fully offset by the 3 who will get a pay decrease.

In 2010, we paid out a total of $14.5 trillion in income. In the plan proposed here, we will also pay out a total of $14.5 trillion in income.

To learn how the incomes proposed here of $115k - $460k are calculated, read this comment:

Total demand currently equals $15 trillion. In this proposed system, total demand will also equal $15 trillion. So total demand remains the same. Since demand does not increase, there is no inflation.

Although total demand will not increase, demand will be different. But since total demand has not increased, the market can adjust to whatever the different demand is.

People might buy less Hyundais and more Mercedes. So the workers who used to build Hyundais will now build Mercedes in order to adjust to the different demand. But since demand for Mercedes will not exceed supply of Mercedes, there is no inflation in the price of Mercedes.

If you can't even get your head around the law of supply and demand then you are simply not qualified to discuss economics, much less propose entire new artificial economic utopias.

Have you ever bought a beer at a football game?

If there is only one bottle of beer left for sale on a hot day, and there are ten thirsty people standing around looking at the bottle of beer, who all make $115k/year, then how much is that bottle of beer going to sell for? One dollar? The cost of production was probably less than that. But I'll bet that if it's hot enough outside that you could sell that bottle of beer for $5 in our current reality, where people don't make $115k/year minimum. You could probably even get away with selling it for $10, or $15. And if we lived in a world where people made $115k/year, minimum, then I would expect you to be able to sell that bottle of beer for $50, or $100, or $500. Why? Because of supply and demand. It's such an incredibly simple concept that if you can't understand it then you need to STOP talking about economics immediately.

First, this is not my idea. Democratic socialism has been advocated for 200+ years. Some version of an economic system where the means of production are decentralized and democratically owned and the income they produce is allocated democratically has been advocated by the most preeminent thinkers from John Stuart Mill to Thomas Paine to George Orwell to Albert Einstein to Martin Luther King, Jr to Noam Chomsky.

Second, I do not advocate that prices should be set arbitrarily based on supply and demand. But we will put that issue aside.

In your example, if you increased price because you think people can pay more, some competitor will offer it cheaper to undercut you. You cannot just set whatever price you want.

Your example is only true with a monopoly selling a product with inelastic demand.

And my proposal does not say we should turn every company into a monopoly so they can charge the highest price possible.

That was an example of how if demand is constant (ten people) and supply is also constant (one beer) then the artificially high wages will cause prices to increase. There are no other competing beer vendors at this hypothetical football game.

Somehow I have the feeIing that this is futile no matter what I say, since you have such a thin grasp of economics in the first place.

Yes, if there was 1 beer left and rich people were bidding on it, it would become very expensive.

But since there will not be 1 company who produces 1 beer, your analogy is pointless.

If overall demand for beer remains the same, supply will equal demand, just like it does today. So there would be no shortage that allows a company to charge an artificially higher price. If they did charge a higher price, they would be undercut by the competition and the price would come back down to normal.

If the increase in worker income results in them demanding more beer, the market will adjust by increasing the supply of beer to meet the increase in demand for beer.

And since the total amount of income we are paying out is not more than the current total amount of income that is paid out, the market will have the ability to adjust to that increase in beer demand.

The increase in income people have, that they now want to use on beer, used to be in the hands of wealthier people who may h